Around January of last year, I told Casey I was going home for the weekend to run a 5K. She reacted with a ton of enthusiasm… “Oh my god!! That is awesome!! Have you been training? Good luck!!!” I remembered thinking, Wow, she is really overly excited, a 5K is not that big of a deal.
When I saw her on Tuesday the next week on the way to an Observer meeting, she came up to me “How was your 5K?? I told my parents you were running a marathon, and they were really surprised you hadn’t been training but were impressed!!!”
I had to explain to Casey and lightly let her down. Casey- a 5K is around 3 miles. A marathon is 26 miles.
“Oh, so wait- they aren’t the same thing?”
This was such a cute moment of Casey’s optimism and support of her friends. I found it really sweet she was proud of my “marathon” and went home and told her parents. This picture is from a 15K I ran in Sept. 2009 under team name “Because of Casey” (it was a relay but I ran alone)… I thought of Casey in the race and touched my Casey bracelet when I started to slack. The race was doing a 5K, out and back on a boardwalk, 3 times. So each time I passed this one woman volunteer she would cheer “YOU GO PINK LADY. You got this, girl!!! WORK IT GIRL!!” and I could picture Casey looking down on me, laughing at this woman showing so much enthusiasm as Casey had done before, and being proud of me for running “three marathons.”
My new goal is to run a marathon in 2010 for Casey, hopefully the NYC Marathon raising money for an animal shelter, and constantly reminding myself, “It’s only a 5K.”
NOTE: Brooke has since ran the NYC Marathon, on Nov. 7, 2010 and did so in Casey’s memory. View the photos and read Brooke’s thoughts about this most exciting day.