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Saturday, March 29
?. I'm not sure what to write. In the past I have entered my Saturday training day post a few days afterward. But today, there is some message or feeling or memory that I don't want to lose. Hopefully, as I sit here pressing keys, the message will form.

I feel a variety of emotions...excitement, pride, anxiousness, sadness, and maybe even a touch of fear. Today was our last training session. During our training walk, as people that I hadn't even met came past they would share words of encouagement, and even those that I passed were encouraging as well. You'd have thought that all of us had known each other for years. Of course, I reciprocated. It's not often in life that people who you are passing (either literally or figuratively), encourage you to do even better. Usually others want you to fail, so that they can catch up and surpass your achievements. Maybe you've heard the "world's" definition of luck--it's the reason for your enemies' success.

It seemed that the 4 miles was over almost as soon as it started. Conversing and motivating all along the route, I was totally distracted from any personal discomfort. It almost seemed effortless. It was as if I had floated around the course. I went to the gym after the training and worked out for another hour, as if to perpetuate the experience.

Even though we are "walkers," this morning no one walked to the finish line. You may not have called it running, but we weren't walking. Among shouts of "come on" and "You can do it," there was so much happiness, pride of accomplishment, and cheering this morning that it almost brought me to tears. As every person came to the finish of today's 4-miler there was a chorus of cheering and gauntlet of high-fives. Instead of leaving, people stayed and cheered as those behind them came in. It's as if we didn't want the moment to end. It was touching. If this was just a training session, what excitement or sadness or pride does next week hold?

None of us are the same as we were 2 months ago...in more than one way. We are different physically. We are different emotionally. And we are different as a group. In January we were a bunch of people. Now, we are a community; a community of friends who want (and want each other) to live longer and stronger.

This is our last week of training. Next Saturday...the "big dance," the Monument Avenue 10k; 31,000 participants, among the top 25 10k events in the United States. I'm starting to have goose bumps already.