Many A Mile

Today I was driving down towards Provo and ended up on University Avenue, which is hit or miss when it comes to traffic. Today was not the day to take University Ave. There hundreds of runners running down the street, policemen posted at every intersection and the road sized down to a single lane. At first I was a bit annoyed at people having the gall to run on "my road" on the road that I needed to drive on to get to my friends house. (Mind you it was pretty early in the morning, about 7 or 8 ish) So I was a little mean and then out of the corner of my eye I saw the sign telling me that it was the Utah Valley Marathon. And that these people were on mile 23 of 26. I don't know what happened in that split second, it may be my hormones from the visitor every girl receives every month, or that I have just been needed to cry for the last little while.

I cried.

I actually started crying, while driving in my car slowly past these people who had almost accomplished a huge task. Running 26 miles. I later found out they started in the canyon at 3:30 in the morning and had been running since. It was an inspirational moment for me. I was so proud of those people and wanted to be like them. Halfway down I saw a woman with a medal around her neck come running up to one of the still running runners and gave her a huge hug and they both continued on towards the finish line. It was a touching, "you had to be there" moment.

These people made my day, by doing something that I can't even fathom doing for a very long time. There were young and old. Large and small. Tall and short. All different kinds of people doing the exact same thing and showing the pureness of human endurance. I loved it and I got my cry. Happy tears though ( did ya read that erin and liesl...happy tears. Me crying happy tears...never thought I'd see that happen. )