September 29, 2007. The Buckhead Sizzler 10k in Atlanta, Georgia. My first race in my 30s. (30 years, one month and six days, actually). I finished in 54:08.
I have no photos of this race (it was deep in the Blackberry era and pre-social media), but I remember the thick, cloying smell of Dunkin Donuts as we passed by the Brookhaven store, traveling south on Peachtree Road towards Buckhead. I’d taken the MARTA train one stop north on the gold line to get to the start of the point to point race, so I could walk from the finish line at Buckhead loop back to my apartment behind the Target. My divorce was two weeks final.
August 5, 2017. The Orting Summerfest Half Marathon in Orting, Washington. My last race in my 30s. (39 years, 11 months and 13 days, actually). I finished in 2:04.
And took a selfie.
I can’t remember what I wore to the Buckhead Sizzler, but it wasn’t a pink tank top emblazoned with the names of female marathoners. (I didn’t know any female marathoners when I ran in Buckhead). I wasn’t a marathoner 23 times over when I ran in Buckhead. I also didn’t have the small, triangle tattoo on the inside of my right elbow. I got that, the logo of the Umstead 100 Mile endurance run, after completing the race at the age of 38.
I didn’t have the story about that time I threw up at the bottom of Mount Washington after racing 6288 feet to the top at 31 (my new boyfriend married me anyway, albeit five years later) and the 10k PR of 49:17 I earned three weeks later. I hadn’t set a half marathon PR by 5 minutes at the age of 35 (only to break it again on the same course two years later), and I hadn’t earned my Marathon Maniacs Iridium level membership by running marathons on Saturday and on Sunday in Utah and Wyoming at the age of 38.
When I raced in Buckhead, just weeks into my 30th year, I didn’t know I would go on to race in Washington, DC and Las Vegas; in Chicago and in San Francisco; in the UK and in Dubai and on the Great Wall of China.
But in the nine years (11 months and 13 days) between the Buckhead Sizzler and the Orting Summerfest, I have done all of these things. And more.
August 26, 2017. The Toro Trail 13.1 in Salinas, California. My first race at the age of 40. (40 years and 3 days, actually). Who knows what will come of it.