You go, first girls!

The first marathon I watched was the Dallas’ White Rock in 2000 or 2001. A friend was running and she was trying to do it in around 3 hours, 15 minutes (ridiculously fast if you know anything about marathon times). We thought we were clever with our sign that said “Cathy 3:16.”

Since she was going to be towards the beginning of the finishers we got there early and saw the elite runners coming in. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. Spectators were lined up on either side of the home stretch, cheering and waving and shouting things like, “You’re almost there!” and “You can do it!” and “Don’t puke! Please don’t puke!”

I was so inspired by these athletes. But the best part was after a few of the Kenyans came across the line and then a couple of American guys, a woman came running up to the finish. It wasn’t my friend Cathy because this was still under the three hour mark; it was just some girl. Some really fast girl.

An official time-keeper person who was standing in the road held up his hand to her and screamed, “First Girl! First Girl!” She slapped his hand, gave the crowd a smile and kept on running. What a rock star.

I thought, “Wow, what an amazing accomplishment,” and it actually made me cry. And even though I knew I would never be the “first girl” in any race, or even the second or third or seventeenth, I decided I wanted to run a marathon. And I did…four years later.

I didn’t get to thank that first girl for her inspiration but yesterday I got to thank another first girl, my sister-in-law Julie who ran and won the Tucson marathon on Sunday.

This is Julie after she crossed the finish line and realized she was the “first girl:”

And here is what they wrote about her in the Arizona Star:

Women's winner Julia Simcik finished first in just her fifth competitive marathon with a time of 2:50:12.

Simcik, 26, said running gives her an escape and she was trying to keep it simple in Sunday's race.
"My goal is to look for the girl in front of me and go get her," she said. "But (today) there was no one in front of me. "I didn't like the Biosphere run and I couldn't wait to get back on Oracle (Road). Once you're back on Oracle you feel like you're home free."
Simcik, who lives in Chandler, finished 11th overall.
She said she doesn't maintain a specific training regimen to prepare for races. Instead, she just likes to go on long runs. "I don't do speed workouts. I just try to run every day," she said. "About two months before this marathon I started going on three-hour runs depending on how the weather was."

I told her that only a handful of people in the world will ever know the feeling of being first in a marathon and she should feel special, even though running long races like that is seemingly easy for her. She assured me that it’s not easy and even she felt sore the next day.

And here I thought first girls ran races like that and then ran all the way home, no problem. It’s kind of nice to know that they’re human too.