I've Got Your Back
"It is to say, my humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours. We belong in a bundle of life. It is not I think therefore I...
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BETSYRUNSCHICAGOAGAIN.COM
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BETSYRUNSCHICAGOAGAIN.COM
Hello, world*!
Like many I know, every time I run a marathon I finish and firmly declare that's enough, I'll never run another... and then, once I've had enough Sundays to sleep in, my black toenails have fallen off and regrown, and I remember that I am lucky enough to still do what my dearest friend Megan and I had always done together, I sign myself back up for yet another challenge. So here I am: training for the 2023 Chicago Marathon, raising money for the best organization around, to honor the best woman I've ever known. Stick with me as I blog the ups and downs of life, run mile after mile in preparation for the 2023 Chicago Marathon, try to perfect my yoga headstand, and eat far too much cake.
This blog is a dedicated space to log my journey, remember Megan, and become the best version of me I can be.
(*And by world I mean the very small subset of my dear friends who are reading this..)
A wee bit about me....
"In the deepest sense of the word, a friend is someone who sees more potential in you than you see in yourself, someone who helps you become the best version of yourself."
- Adam Grant
I never would have thought I'd be a runner. I tried it in high school, hurt myself, and gave up. It wasn't for me, I told myself. Anything I wasn't 100% perfect at, I wasn't interested in.
Enter Megan Dickie. We met in law school and became fast friends - the kind of friends who have such a deep, immediate connection that nothing can separate your souls, even if geographical distance might. Megan was a runner, and despite all my protestations that there was no way I could ever be a runner like her, she wore me down. She convinced me to just start, just try. So I did. We started running together in the sub-zero Vermont mornings, frost clinging to our eyelashes as we trained together for the Queens NYC Half Marathon - my first official 13.1. She had me hooked.
After that we were inseparable and unstoppable - running races in New Hampshire, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, North Carolina. We'd run the trails of Rock Creek when Megan lived in DC, the streets of Seattle where I was, and eventually the streets of Denver when Megan made it to where she was meant to be. Not to mention a host of random places in between. The 13.1's were adding up and soon we both added in a few 26.2's as well.
Then the unspeakable happened. In 2017 Megan died suddenly of a seizure, leaving me with a broken spirit and a shattered heart. Death: the ultimate physical separation. I floundered; life felt inconceivable without Megan. I turned to the one thing that I knew could bring me comfort: running. I trained for the 2017 Chicago Marathon and raised money for Danny Did, an amazing organization whose mission is to advance public awareness of epilepsy and the risk of Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP), to protect people with epilepsy, and to prevent deaths caused by seizures.
Unfortunately, between the grief I was experiencing, an ill-timed injury, a sinus infection, and an unusually hot Chicago October day, the 2017 marathon didn't go as I had planned. So here I am again: Round 2. I am once again raising money for Danny Did and logging all the miles it takes to make a successful 26.2 run on October 8, 2023 at the Chicago Marathon.
Donate to the cause:
Or contact me directly: betsy@betsyrunschicagoagain.com
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