The Power of Sisterhood
This month, we take a look back at an event where the power of running to change “maybe someday” to “if not now, when?” became manifest. On August 16, 2015, 54 women from our local area joined together in a spirit of unity and sisterhood, 17 women running 13.1 miles and 37 running 26.2 in the all-women Leading Ladies Marathon. Nearly all were new to the distance they planned to run. For eight months, these women balanced families, schedules, work, community obligations, endured long hours on the road and hours on their feet to reach the finish line. They gathered in the Black Hills of Spearfish, South Dakota with “a spark of heavenly fire” as the saying goes “that lives in every woman’s heart.” That fire “lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity.” It is a fire that hides from us when we stay too long in our comfort zone. It is a fire that only ignites in “beams and blazes in the dark of adversity.” This heart fire roars when we do hard things, and these women did something very hard. And they did it as sisters. Together, they were a conflagration of heart, determination, purpose and friendship.
Leading Ladies Nebraska, a companion program of the Platte River Fitness Series, is an example of how an ordinary conversation can also light the fire of creativity. An accidental meet-up with Dee Tuenge in the locker room at the Rec Center blossomed into something neither of us expected. Most people, even those who do not run, understand that a marathon is something hard and a huge accomplishment. When I first started running, 26.2 miles seemed unattainable. The marathon was for “real runners,” and a physical feat I couldn’t even fathom being able to complete. Accomplishing what had seemed impossible when I ran my first marathon in 1997 was life changing. Both Dee and I wanted other women to feel that same mixture of beautiful and terrible that leads to real personal growth. The marathon forges people into someone new. “The person who starts the marathon is not the same person who finishes it.” So true.
Imagine 54 women donning red headbands with a white reflective silhouette of Nebraska and 54 red pins on the race map showing where athletes traveled from. It was clear from the map that we were a force of fierce women. Only South Dakota had more participants than Nebraska. Imagine our shirts, the logo echoing a distant call to women from decades before with the simple message: “Sisterhood is Powerful.” We were powerful. We are still powerful. The truly scenic course, rolling gently through forests and waterfalls, was dotted with these red, white and gray team shirts and our unity as Nebraska women was on full display. At the ten-year reunion just a few days ago, it was that unity, before, during and after the marathon that women remember the most.
Leading Ladies Nebraska ran nearly 1200 miles on just that one day in August. In preparation, the miles they conquered were many, many multiples more. That kind of mileage takes time. It takes commitment. It takes determination. Most of all, it takes the resolve to move forward in the moment. It is so easy to put off challenges we’d like to take on, things we’d like to pursue, work that is more meaningful, relationships that would enrich our lives. People are very good at procrastination. Hidden under procrastination sometimes is fear. The idea of running 26.2 miles (or even 13.1 miles) is scary! The training is scary. Looking at a training plan that includes runs that you know will require the sacrifice of half of a weekend day is daunting. Watching the weather forecast on those long run days and on race day is scary. The stories of “the wall,” the nemesis of every marathoner, are terrifying. There are stories of chaffing and blisters the size of Nebraska that can stop you in your tracks. Oh, and let’s not forget the bathroom stories, the “intestinal revolt too far from the next port-a-potty- with nowhere to go and no way to hide” kind of story. Who signs up for that? Fifty-four strong women do. Fifty-four women who seized this special moment in time to make their own wish come true. They wrote their own story.
We love running with our “misters with the sisters,” but there is something wonderful about an all-women’s event. It was almost poetic to be met at the finish line by men in tuxedos (or maybe t-shirts made to look like tuxedos! It’s the idea that counts!) with not only your finisher’s medal, but a single red rose and a chocolate. What woman wouldn’t fall in love…not with the men in tuxedos, but with the marathon. Some of the sisters and a few of our beloved misters went on to run other marathons and half-marathons together. Dear sweet Richard Deckert even wore a silky, long black wig in solidarity with the sisters at a race. Team LL Nebraska showed up in Aspen, Denver, Deadwood, Utah and in our state’s largest marathon in Lincoln. We were never able, however, to repeat the miracle of August 16, 2015. Our own version of “the miracle on ice.”
Part of the fire that moves women runners like the Leading Ladies to toe the line of a marathon is our complicated history with it. The first modern Olympic marathon was held in Athens, Greece in 1896. Katherine Switzer ran the Boston Marathon 71 years later, in 1967, using only her initials to register. The enraged race director tried to physically push her off the course. It took 5 more years before women were officially allowed to run in Boston in 1972, nearly 100 years after that first event in Athens. Many people think Katherine Switzer was the first woman to run a marathon, but for historical accuracy, Arlene Pieper ran the Pikes Peak Marathon in 1959, reaching and descending its 14,115-foot summit, greeted by perhaps a much more enlightened race director. Women were thought too frail and fragile for such physical feats, and it was believed that it would affect a “woman’s reproductive health.” Propriety prevents me from saying just exactly what they thought might happen, but trust me when I say, they were wrong.
Knowing its history, knowing that women were told they didn’t belong in marathons for so long is what inspires women marathoners. Tell a strong woman she can’t do something and then get out of the way and watch her prove you wrong. The 54 Leading Ladies proved that they could. Women make up not quite half of the field, on average, in American marathons. We most certainly have come a long way! On behalf of the entire Platte River Fitness family, congratulations on the OG’s of Leading Ladies Nebraska, the Spearfish team of 2015! Sisterhood really is powerful!