Another Half Marathon Down · 11:30pm Apr 29th, 2016
This time it was the OKC Memorial Marathon. Last year I did the full and the year before that the 5k, so it only made sense to do the half this year to complete the set, especially since I hadn't even remotely trained up enough this spring to be ready for the full.
As in previous races, I text-to-speeched some pony fic chapters, this time the following:
• The three most recent chapters of Rites of Ascension
• The beginning of the first chapter of The Perilous Romance of Swans
And then my phone's battery went dead and I finished the last two miles in disappointing silence. Ehh.
But anyway. Last year I didn't talk too much about the reason behind this particular race, but this year I took some pictures ahead of time (possibly the cause of those battery issues), and thought they should be shared.
Back in 1995, my family had just moved to Oklahoma the previous summer, so we were fairly new to the state. There I was sitting in Drama in high school, and suddenly the teacher turned on the TV and most of the rest of the day was spent lost in watching the coverage of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing.
Six years later, unknown to me at the time since I was busy with college and busy being far too fat to run anything, the first OKC Memorial Marathon was held, roughly on the anniversary of the bombing. It continues to this day, and serves as a fundraiser for the bombing Memorial & Museum as well as a general civic unity and togetherness event. It starts and ends at the Memorial so before you even run it you get to wander through it and, well, think about stuff.
This is the Survivor Tree. It was part of the original landscaping that surrounded the federal building and survived the bombing, and now serves as the emblem of the memorial.
This is the Memorial itself (click for bigger). The two gates on either side represent the second before and the second after the bombing, and the chairs you might be able to see faintly on the grass across the way represent the victims of the bombing, one chair for each.
So there's a little bit of backstory. Possibly a bit more depressing than anyone going into this might have expected, so I apologize for that.
Oh hey! You're a marathoner? Cool! My mom used to be a runner before her immune system decided "FUCK OUR HOST!". I used to help her train for marathons. It was fun!
What's your best time?
3906205 I am no speed demon, I tend to come in at 2:30-ish for a half and my one full was five hours even. On Sunday I ran it in 2:38, so a little slower than my usual.
3906209 That's still way better than me. I can't do distance running, I'm a sprinter. But I do well under a load. back when I got to do HEMA stuff I managed to sprint at almost full speed in fullplate. That was REALLY exhausting, but still realy cool.
Extremely impressive! I'm fit but there is no way I could run a half marathon. Well done :D
Knowing what you've gone through to get to this point just makes it all the more impressive. So proud of and glad for you!
The pictures and the associated stories are really interesting to know. The Surviver Tree especially. A little haunting... but in a good way, I think.
3906526 From the pictures I've seen of you, I'd actually be really surprised if you couldn't, or at least if you were particularly far from being able to. It might take a little bit of running training, but you're probably closer to being able to run one than you think.
A full marathon is another story entirely, though. It has some physiological requirements that will kick your butt if you aren't prepared.
3906530 Thanks!
Yeah, the tree is the part that sticks with me the most. The whole event is kind of etched into the public consciousness here, but it's been handled and responded to in such a way that the city has thrived as a result, much like the tree.
That's awesome. Glad you've been keeping to it.