RR Marine Corps Marathon 2014, Code Name: Embrace the Suck

I've known since about mid-August that this race was going to suck. And the way I knew that was by looking at my training schedule. Of course, that would have involved having to actually look at my training schedule, which is something I more or less denied all existence of.

If you've been playing along at home, you know I've had a very rough year. The roughest. In some ways, it was more difficult than the year I got divorced--possibly because I was trying to do it on my own. Or maybe because I thought I was supposed to be invincible about it, or something. But anyway, this isn't that post. This is a post about how I know better than to ever, ever run a marathon when my training is spotty and my longest run to date has been eleven miles. And how I did it anyway, because I'm an idiot. A stubborn, stubborn idiot.

My reasons for doing this were manyfold, but mostly they involved pride. That, and a teeny tiny thing called that MCM Runner's Club. Five marathon finishes and you're guaranteed entry for life. With the institution last year of the lottery entry, this is sort of a huge deal to those of us who are preternaturally attached to this race.

So. Anyway. Back to The Suck.

Woke up late Friday morning, because, you know, my sleep schedule has been a complete clusterfuck for about the past eighteen months, thank you very much grief and anxiety, and still hadn't packed. And the reason I hadn't packed is because I didn't have any clean underwear. Or socks. I did, in fact, have clean race kit, which was unexpected; I'd thought that was down there in the bottom of the laundry basket, but it wasn't. Which just goes to show how long it had been since I'd run. So I did a load of only the laundry I'd need for the race, ignoring the rest of the mountain of jeans and towels and sheets, ran the dishwasher, cleaned the litter box, and generally made things bearable in the home aspect of life so there wouldn't be a mutiny while I was gone. By that time, it was almost 4:00. Ugh.

The drive down was mostly uneventful in the traditional sense, but I was pretty emotional, remembering the last time I drove down for this race. Things were very, very different then and I couldn't help but remember the rambling phone conversation that lasted all three and a half hours of my drive in 2012. By the time I hit the exit for BWI, I realised I was more completely and honestly in love than I had been in....well. A long time. So. By the time I got to the hotel, where the festivities--by which I mean beer--had started without me, I needed to detour to my room for a few minutes for a good stormy cry.

That taken care of, I went downstairs to hang with the running family: Gunz and Nita and Carl and Holly and Moo and the ever-elusive JW. Beer was had, and chips were had, and birthday cake was had (Carl's son turned 22, which I still can't figure out because wasn't he just like 16 last week?) and then ultimately bourbon was had because Nita. Gunz finally showed his punk ass around 11:00, which took the onus off me of being last bitch in (thanks for taking one for the team, dude).

Saturday we hit the expo first thing, though the line for security was already the snake that ate its own tail. Mostly we were there for packet pickup, though Nita needed a phone armband because she was waiting for a phone call from her daughter in basic (that never came, because of course, because Air Force) and I wanted to hit the Mizuno booth. Which.....wasn't there. Sadness. Lunch. Naps. Dinner was a hoot, as we were joined by Len, Jeremiah, and Flex--BIG FLEXY LOVE--and Flex is always a joy to be around. His enthusiasm and humour are infectious. Big. Flexy. Love. Seriously. That man. That smile. Those dance moves.

Sunday, turns out, I wasn't the only one who heard the alarm, rolled over, and thought, Do I really want to do this? I could totally stay in bed. We were all on the NTP this summer. Nobody was ready for this. Nita herself hadn't run long except Mega a month ago, and Gunz had taken a bad fall there and pulled himself off course at Mile 20, worried he'd broken his wrist and damaged both knees worse than the Marine Corps had. And Len's training had paralleled mine in distance and regularity, but at least he has the excuse of being my mother's age with a very ill wife and a bum hip. So I had company in The Suck.

First Len and I couldn't find each other at the start line, because we were staying in different hotels and I was herding cats with the group in the hotel lobby. We hooked up just in time to start with the....um, I think we were with the 4:30 pace group, which is sort of hilarious but also gave us a good cushion to beat the bridge. The first two or three miles were trying to get into a rhythm, visiting European trees, warming up, and talking about Len's underwear. What? We're runners. When you've just veered off into the shrubbery to pee next to each other, the next obvious topic of conversation is the advantages and disadvantages of your particular choice of skivvies in this operation. (The part where usually he's all, "It's a secret passage--to my penis!" and I'm trying not to blurt out, "Wait, you wear underwear?")

By about Mile 6 I was finally warmed up and feeling sort of ok. The fact that Mile 6 is entirely downhill totally helped. That was sadly short-lived, though. My back has been tight since about January, due to how much sitting on my ass writing a dissertation consists of. Mile 7 brought that tightness to new levels of Suck. Seriously, everything that wasn't my abs was cramping by the time we got down out of Rock Creek Park. Len wasn't doing much better.

At Mile 11 Len made the painful but ultimately wise choice to pull the rip cord. He promised to meet me again at the bridge. So there I was, on Hains Point, alone, devastated, discouraged, sore, tired, and oh great. Mile 12. The Blue Mile. The Blue Mile is lined with pictures of military members killed in action. Hundreds of them. And friends and family members holding full-sized American flags with black name stripes on them.

Mile 12 is where I lost my shit.

At Mile 14 I passed Groundpounder Matt Jaffe and his crew. He was starting to look pretty grim, but still encouraging. Promised him the next mile. Sadly, the next mile brought hamstring cramping badly enough that I was worried about a tear, so I stopped at medical and had them wrap it.

Off Hains Point I ran into Len! He toddled with me a little--I was doing mostly walking at that point--and said he'd see me at the bridge. More walking. Midway through Mile 16 I passed Matt Jaffe again. His team was trying to get him to sit down long enough to massage a trouble point. With the vehemence of a man who's run this marathon 38 years in a row, he barked out the strongest NO! I ever want to hear as I passed. (I found out the day after the race that the pace car had passed him on the bridge and forced him onto the bus. My heart absolutely breaks for him.)

Near the Capitol I ran into Amanda Sullivan, crutching her way to awesomeness. I've chatted with her online and her enthusiasm and joy astound me. She's the only person I've ever seen straighten up from puking after Mile 20 with a smile on her face and say, "Man, that bridge isn't playing. Phew!" and then keep on her rhythm with that same smile.

Quick chat with Len on the bridge (which basically consisted of me flopping against his ribcage and groaning, "I hurt like a motherfucker," and him handing me his squashed baby Snickers bars that he'd been saving for hard times such as this.)

More trudging. Six point two miles of it. The only bright spot was when a total stranger handed me an entire can of Coors Light heading into Crystal City. A cold Coors Light. Normally I wouldn't touch the stuff, but in the mood I was in, and the way my lower half felt, it was seriously the best thing I've ever tasted in my life. Glug.

And then I was at Mile 26 and I am good goddamned if I'm gonna hit that hill walking. When you've been on the course roughly seven hours, apparently this makes Marines very happy. I made about 30 new friends charging up that hill. Which is good because I very nearly needed them to peel me off the pavement after I crossed the finish line.

So I have a new official PW for any marathon I've ever completed. And I mostly don't care because I knew it was going to be The Suck. I was hoping it would stay in the six hour range but meh. Sometimes you just have to embrace The Suck.

I expect The Suck and I to announce our engagement any day now.

A Dream Deferred

The end of August brought with it some personal and professional trials that just about knocked me on my ass. I knew I was at my breaking point when marathon training started becoming a cause for anxiety rather than a reliever of it and I found myself avoiding training runs because I was afraid they would go badly.

What can I say, y'all, I was stressed.

So after a couple of weeks of being very nearly unmoored, occasionally in front of other people (which was almost as upsetting for them as it was for me), I finally realised that something had to give. Since I was loath to part with my sanity, my relationship with Himself, or my academic career, that something ended up being Marine Corps marathon later this month. After talking it over with a couple of folks--the man I consider my running coach, the chiropractor I consider my counselor and spiritual advisor, and the man I consider my dad--and weighing my options, I decided to defer my marathon registration until 2014.

Stay tuned for other stuff. Not all of it is stuff I want to talk about on the interwebz--in fact, some of it is stuff I don't even really know how to talk about it in what a friend charmingly (and weirdly, since she's vegetarian) calls "meatspace"--but some of it needs to find its way out and home.

RR St. Jude Country Music (Half) Marathon, Code Word: Doing the Nasty

Despite being on the NTP (Nita Training Plan, also known as not training at all) for this race, it ended up being redeeming in a lot of ways. It was in many ways a baptism. And I'm not just saying that because of near-flood conditions.

The day after I got home from Nashville in January, all hell sort of broke loose in my emotional and spiritual life, you may recall, and I'm only now coming out of the carapace I'd built around myself to try to ward off the crazy. As much as I tried to stay with it and engage with the process, I really hate change. I hate it. It's uncomfortable. As I once memorably said to a pastor's wife and dear friend, "I like my comfort zone. It's comfortable." I wasn't being ironic or witty, either. I was dead serious.

So, all that is to say that I had mixed feelings about returning to the scene of the crime. (Except love is not a crime. Only denying it is.)

None of this makes sense. It's not a narrative, it's not about running, and it's not about the race.

Welcome to my life, folks.

I don't know why I thought flying down to Nashville at 7:10 in the morning was a good idea; surely the hundred dollars extra a flight at a human hour would have cost was worth not having to get up at 3:15 in the morning and drive to Newark. Alas, it was not to be. Mags lives literally on my way to the airport, so I offered to drive her, for which she gave me a mason jar full of homemade moonshine. We hit the expo pretty shortly after checking into the hotel, where I accidentally got interviewed by Channel 5 News because I was wearing a Boston Strong t-shirt. Fortunately my interview is only quoted in the write-up, and not on-camera. I do, however, make a cameo as That One Chick Who Indiscriminately Hugs Strangers Because They're from Brighton and Are Safe from Terrorists. After the interview, said Stranger from Brighton asked for a picture with me from her organization. Due to the unfortunate combination of biology and Adidas's graphic design department, it appears she is pointing enthusiastically at my enormous rack. She is, but not for the reasons people normally do.

My breasts are not from Boston. But they stand as one. Er, two.

Then there was all sorts of stupidity involving the hotel shuttle and a comped lunch because of the hotel shuttle, and then I fell sound the hell asleep for a few hours until everything started happening at once.

Thursday night ultimately found me with my beloved friends the Masons and their lovely neighbours Inspector Dave and Sunny, drinking moonshine from a mason jar around their living room coffee table and ultimately watching He-Man reruns because it got that late and we couldn't find the remote to change the channel. In truth, we could not turn away.

Friday, needless to say, was spent drinking a lot of water to undo that hilarity, lunch with Mags, a little bit of solo wandering downtown, at loose ends and at odds with myself, and then back to the Mason Jar. See what I did there? No? Ok. Anyway, Steve had left for a couple of house concerts in the upper midwest, so it was me and Jude and the kids, and we had a splendid time eating pizza that's better than any pizza so far from Brooklyn has a right to be, catching up, and watching Pitch Perfect which involved my staying up far later than I ought to have done.

And then it was race day and I was up far too early for the second morning that week. It started raining just as I got into Geoff the Jeep to drive to the start shuttle at LP Field. After that it was sort of all downhill. Except the parts that were uphill. I spent the better part of pre-race loitering in a McDonald's near my start corral with several hundred of my closest friends while the skies lightened...and opened. By the time I lined up for the start, it was full downpour and I was as cold as I've ever been in my life. Fuck this noise, let's run so I can at least feel my feet again. My feet, which are starting to ship water.

For by you, I can run in the night. You'd have loved this race.

At the expo, we had been given blue and yellow Boston commemorative bracelets with 4.15.13 on them. Just prior to the start, we were asked to hold those arms in the air, and give the peace sign during a minute of silence. It was the peace sign that undid me. I'm tearing up just writing about it. Then they went straight into the national anthem (which was aca-awesome). Fortunately it was raining because by the time they sent off the wheelchair start with Sweet Caroline there were thirty thousand people bawling their eyes out.

And then we were off. I was in a closer corral than I often am, but still pretty far back, so there was a lot of standing around shivering. While I was waiting, I bit thumb-holes in my throwaway jersey because it was clear I was going to need every layer of clothing I had on.

My back had been very tight in the area just north of my right hip for several days leading up to my flight down there, and with the wet streets I was really concerned about slipping at some points. Mostly I was just concerned about not drowning. I hadn't realised this was going to be a run/swim duathlon when I signed up for it.

It had been obvious for several weeks that I was going to run the half course instead of the full. Between the loop-de-loops in my life, the exams schedule, and the part where I broke toes walking into a piece of furniture in the middle of the night to avoid a cat, that message was loud and clear. Nevertheless, at one point during the first three or four miles I felt really good and thought briefly that maybe I'd attempt the full after all. Fortunately within moments I realised the folly of my ways.

By mile six things were utterly ridiculous. It was raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock. There was water coursing down the road on the hills. I was doing a lot of walking because of my back, and a lot of peeing because of the rain. Something about being waterlogged from the outside makes drinking water at rest stations fairly redundant. Seriously, I peed more during this half marathon than I did during any full, ever, or possibly even put together, and for that matter more than during El Scorcho. Which I would like to remind you was THIRTY-ONE MILES. In short, there was some serious peeing happening in Nashville last weekend.

Anyway, somewhere past Belmont in the middle of mile six or seven, a very lovely young woman offered me her red Solo cup full of mimosa. Whoever you are, I love you. Then, a half-mile later, another lovely woman, somewhat older and probably a mom, had dry towels stashed in the trunk of her minivan for runners to wipe their faces off so we could see for even a little bit. Whoever you are, I love you even more. Maybe.

And then I squished and slogged and sluiced along for another seven miles. I had a bad moment on Twelve South when I had to run past the Frothy Monkey, because they were open. And selling coffee. Hot, glorious, yummy, bone-tingling coffee. And then I was past them at the top of the hill. Sad Monkey.

Met another thyroid cancer survivor at mile ten, going on seven years strong. April 27th was my fifteenth cancer-versary, and it was because of this that I became a runner in the first place, so this was pretty sweet. We exchanged soggy hugs when we parted.

Right around mile 12.5, I met up with Susan, who had a cramp in her foot, and no wonder because it was cold, man. We were all little clenched shivers of wet humans trying to keep our shit together. It had long ago become obvious that I didn't give a shit about this as a race anymore, as long as there was a pot of hot tea waiting for me back at the Mason Jar (Jude's British; this is a completely reasonable expectation). I had long blown any PW out of the water, so to speak, mostly because of the standing in line to pee FOUR TIMES, but also because have I maybe mentioned that it was raining like pouring piss out of a boot this whole time?

This is not me. This is some other drowned rat of a runner.

So anyway, Susan and I sort of trundled our way back in to LP Field, which for the record is also "just around the corner and up the hill" from mile 13. (Long story, but that's how the finish line of my very first ever 5k was described by the cop directing traffic. Suffice it to say that "up" is not a word you want to use in front of first-time runners if you do not want dirty looks in response. Eight years later at my first Marine Corps Marathon, my dad stood at the bottom of the Very Enormous Hill up to the Iwo Jima Memorial that comprises the last 285 yards of the marathon and greeted me with, "Just around the corner and up the hill." If I could have lifted my arm at that point I would have gladly slugged him. Instead I just lobbed my water belt at my mom and kept limping along.)

I got my kick in and finished strong, then wrung out my shirt and skirt while in the finish chute, which cracked some people up. I'd taken off my throwaway simply so there'd be at least one picture of me on the course. Turns out I'm barely in the frame. Dorks. That's ok, I look like every other freezing, waterlogged, drowned rat of a runner looked that day. Susan and I did take a picture together at the end, which was really sweet. Then I set about finding Geoff the Jeep, because he had a dry zip-up for me, and more importantly HE HAD HEAT.

Due to the way the finish line was set up, I had to walk fully three quarters of the way around the stadium to get to where I'd parked. By this time, the rain had stopped. Of course. I wrung out everything I could, including my hair and my hat, and hopped in for the ride home. Under normal circumstances it would have taken two minutes, but I couldn't get onto the damn road in the right direction and had to get on the freeway to get off at the next exit. This gave me enough time to text Jude and let her know that maybe she needed to meet me at the kitchen door with a couple of towels.

God love her, not only were there towels, there were cheering teenagers at the front door, a hot fig and honey bubble bath with a scented candle on the toilet seat, the pot of tea, and leftover pizza. Eventually I thawed out and took E2 with me to Kroger (so I could find it) to get the crucial ingredients for Thai green curry supper. If you're wondering why I went, it's because I offered, so that Jude could get Bean down for a nap and the big kids could maybe not kill each other. Also, E2 and I sort of bonded big time last weekend. Love. Her. While at Kroger, I made the beautiful discovery that you can buy beer in the grocery store in Tennessee. So I did, which made both Jude and me very happy later that evening.

Slept hard Saturday night and barely made it out of my pajamas in time for Steve's return, and thank god because wouldn't that have been awkward. I mean, this is a man I've known for close to twenty years and I'm pretty sure he's seen me throw up at least once (yay cancer) but he does not need to see me first thing in the morning, ever. For the sake of our friendship, I found some clothes I could put on without too much effort, since going up the steep stairs to E2's bedroom to get them was about enough activity for me, thanks.

Sunday was lovely. There was a walk round the neighbourhood in the sun, lunch at Calypso (omg fruit tea addiction), spontaneous friend visits, French cricket in the backyard (where I fell over, because of course), more spontaneous friend visits, and enormous pork loin barbecue. So. Good. Oh, and haircuts for the guys, because Steve is in barber school. With a mustache like his, it's the perfect place for him. Here, Steve nails Cal pretty good.

After altogether too much food and good company and helping Steve with the washing up (what, darlin, I'm Irish. We can't help ourselves. We wash up. It's how we do.) it was time to head back to my hotel room and give them some family time alone, which they don't get nearly enough of between Steve's tour schedule and the E-Team being with their mom during the week. I dearly wish I could have caught up with Steve more, but we managed to get some good talking done in the little bits between other stuff happening.

Monday I slept until almost noon and spent the rest of the day reading in the sun by the pool and trying not to nap. Which was closed, but that was fine. I didn't want any more water. Possibly ever.

And then it was all over until next time. There's a lot I'm leaving out, but some of it is utterly inexpressible. Only know this: once a door has been shown to you, there is only one way and that is through.

Flying Inland.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Interior Monologue

Someone just asked me what I think about while I'm running.

Oh god this sucks. Why do I run? I have so much shit I have to read it's not even funny. My ass hurts. I miss Matt. Fuck. This is stupid. I hate running. Hey, this doesn't feel too bad. Wait, yes it does. My nose is running. Oh hey look, a bird. Bye, bird. My knee feels weird. I wonder if I could make the argument that Thoreau...nah....Ed won't buy that. Wait, what time is it? I gotta pee. God this feels good. Shit. This sucks. How far is it? I hate running. I love running.If I keep this pace up, my marathon time will be....carry the four.....DAMN YOU BART YASSO! God, fatass cyclists who never yield. Make a hole, dammit! Fine. I'll just run into you. Asshole. I hate running. I gotta pee. Is it over yet? I miss Ruby. Fucking brain tumours. God I'm so angry. Ew. I think I ate a bug. My ass hurts. Relax. No, seriously. Relax. Am I there yet? I love running. I wonder how far it's been. I gotta blow my nose. I'm hungry. I gotta pee. Where's Len? I hate running. I love running. I want a cheeseburger.

This is pretty much an exact replica of every internal monologue of every run ever. If it sounds boring to read it, imagine being trapped inside your own head with it for six hours.

RR Marine Corps Marathon 2012, Code Name: No Guts, No Glory. No, Really.

This was simultaneously the best and the shittiest race of my relatively short marathoning career. I learned some important lessons this weekend. Among them:

1. Six weeks after abdominal surgery is too soon to run a marathon, even if it was laparoscopic.

2. I am still having trouble digesting things. Sometimes I care more than other times. One of those times is at Mile 5 when I have to veer over to the guard rail and try to puke.

3. There are still things in the running world cooler than a finisher's medal. Even one from the Marines.

The weekend started out pretty well. I didn't get detoured, lost, or ever really re-routed through the District on my way into Rosslyn, though I did run into a wee bit of traffic. But right from the get-go, something was off. I knew I was going to be moody all weekend (hello, hormones!) but I'd forgotten to take into account that I was also on a decongestant that makes me cranky and tense. Oops. So I was simultaneously really happy and a total bitch until after lunch on Saturday, when I figured things out and stopped taking the decongestant.

Friday night the part of the gang that was already in town went out to dinner and then set about some serious drinking back at the hotel. Not sure how it happened. Suddenly it was 2am and the beer was gone. Oooops.

I've got my people with me. And I'm standing on a table. Life is good.

Saturday I finally got a chance to get to the Expo, which unlike other years was a complete gagglefuck. Seriously. Did they lease this thing out to Competitor Group? Get it together, Marines! You're better than this! My bib was in a different place than my bag was in a different place than my shirt was in a different place than I had to STAND IN LINE because there was only one poor civvie volunteer looking up  bib numbers for those of us whose printers went tits-up when we tried to print out our confirmation emails before leaving.

And then, the lines. Ugh. The line was fantastic in that it moved quickly, but long-ass. And it made me miss the brunch-bus. Which made me sad, since I'd asked to go to OHP specifically. No dutch baby for me. But I managed to drive out and meet them, and Char had already ordered mine for me. Sweet relief! After brunch, I had time for a nap before dinner, but couldn't get to sleep. Did get a bit of a lie-down, though. Just not enough to make up for the five hours of sleep.

Do not get between me and my Dutch baby. Period.

Dinner itself was very, very odd. I won't get into specifics here, but the original dinner plan got hijacked. The good bit about dinner was getting to see my cousin OB for the first time in about 19 years. OB and I aren't actually related by blood--our moms are best friends--but we go back literally our entire lives. This is the kid who taught me how to belch the alphabet, the one who was my partner in crime the first time we stayed up past midnight, and--oh yeah, he's also a Naval Commander now. So he fit right in with the gang. I just sat him down next to Gunz and Gunz's old Marine buddy Patrick and let them loose.

Me and OB, together for the first time in nineteen years

Got back to the room before nine, but could not get to sleep. For the second night in a row, my stomach was bothering me, in addition to pre-race nerves. And this time they were justified.

Sunday morning go-time. Should have gone downstairs and had oatmeal for breakfast; instead, because my stomach was uncertain, I had a Clif Bar. Which turns out not to have been the best choice. By the time I finished it, I was already queasy. This was not good.

We are marathoners victorious, with our game faces on. And we are sleepy.
Also, some of us are psycho,  but that's beside the point.

We met up in the lobby and walked to the start together. I kept my eye out for Len, who was running with me--and the chest cold I had last week. I couldn't find him, so when the Howitzer went off I just put my head down and went, relatively certain that Len would find me--but in the meantime, I needed to run my own race. And right around Mile 2, find me he did, which turns out to be what got me through this race as far as I did. By this time, I was already needing the encouragement. I was lightheaded, and right around the 5k mark I started feeling nauseous and thinking it was going to be a very long race.

Oh, the irony.

So we continued, with Len graciously keeping at my pace even though he could have gone ahead several times. I made an aborted attempt at a pit stop somewhere in Spout Run--in other words, I veered suddenly over to the guard rail and tried earnestly to puke my guts out, without success--and a porta-john pit-stop around Mile 7.5 or 8. Trouble was, every time I started to run, within two minutes I'd be deeply nauseous to the point of watering eyes and tunnel vision. Urp.

By the time we got to Hains Point, we were mostly walking. Walking at a decent clip, mind you, but still definitely walking. The internal incisions where my gallbladder had previously taken up residence were aching badly now, on top of the nausea. This sucked hardcore. I wanted to stop. Coming back from the Point, the wind picked up--oh, did I mention there was a hurricane forecast for Sunday night? Yeah. So there we were, asses flapping in the breeze, getting blown backward while trying to hunch over and walk forward. And not puke. And not cry. I seriously wanted to lie down in the road. Even during my worst moments, that's never happened before. I was actively looking forward to being ill and falling over so that I would have an excuse to stop moving forward. I couldn't catch my breath, and I couldn't feel anything except cold and nauseous, and....oh. Now my right IT band got in on the act. That was unusual; it's always been the left one that's bothered me.

Hobbled a few more miles, but this was seriously the longest fucking race of my life. I wasn't even watching the signs or the spectators. I wasn't handing out high fives, and I'd stopped fist-bumping Marines before the orange station at Mile 9. I was not in a good way.

And then we got rerouted. Motherfuckers added a second cutoff to the race course two years ago, and it's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard in my entire life. Because not only do you not finish, you have to actually COMPLETE the course, getting rerouted right from Mile 17.5 to Mile 19.5, where the victory party of having beaten the bridge is busy going on. Everyone's telling you you've made it, you're almost there--only you're not. You're an imposter, a fraud, a cheat. And you have to hobble by these people with your head held high like you don't resent them for thinking you've made it this far in one piece. Fortunately Len is too good a man to ever remind me of the things I said during these two miles, because I was bitterly upset and disappointed. What was even worse was the well-meaning spectator who shouted out, "Good job, runners!--and walkers!" Ouch. We are not walkers. We are runners who happen to be walking. Or, you know, hobbling.

Once off the bridge, we decided that since it was unofficial and we weren't going to take finisher's medals anyway (which is on the honor system--there's no way of telling, but they ask you not to take one if you've been rerouted. I can guarantee you there are other people who did, or would. While on those two miles I considered sending my competitor shirt to our friend Nita who didn't make the trip, or outright burning it, but Len pretty much told me to get over myself.) Anyway. While on the bridge, we agreed that having to walk another two miles through Crystal City was bullshit we were not in the mood for. At that point I just wanted to get my knee taped up, get back to my hotel, curl up in a ball, puke my guts out, and cry. I wasn't going to go to dinner. I couldn't handle it. I just wanted it to be over. (I did eventually go out to dinner with the gang, once I got over myself. I just needed a few miles of self-pity.)

Len did a wonderful job of distracting me during those middle 15 miles or so. We turned out to be in the right place at the right time when a fellow runner's calves cramped up simultaneously and he fell over right next to us. I could see the twitching and tried to ease it the best I could with what I had (which is to say, reiki and talking him down and just being there). Len got him stretched out once the twitching stopped enough to seat him upright, and we helped him up and on his way, along with someone who'd gotten him water and a fourth fellow who just stopped to check. Because that's what runners do. When you fall down, we scrape you up and set you on your feet again. We point you in the right direction and cheer as you toddle on.

And then, half a mile later when you fall over again, we repeat the process. During this second one, Len was able to help him by himself, so I took advantage of our proximity to Pentagon parking lot porta-johns. With equally dismal results.

What should have been my sub-six victory march up the hill was a long, angry slash at an unfair, shitty day and an unfair, shitty series of events in the past seven weeks. We still ran across the finish, because I've always sworn I would never walk across a finish line, but it was the feeblest damn excuse for a run I've ever seen. Len said later that by this point I looked like death warmed over (there are official race photos of this phenomenon, and he is in fact incorrect. I don't look warmed over. I just look like cold, congealed, nose-runny death.) but that I was clearly determined to run up that hill, so if I could run it, he could run it. That startled me, because not only is it seriously the highest compliment anyone has ever paid my determination, but because I hadn't realised Len was hurting at that point. I was sure that even then I was holding him back. Turns out we were holding each other up. Funny how that works, at Mile 26.

Fortunately we were able to detour around the medal chute without too much attention or trouble. There was the requisite trouble getting my hands to function--seriously, I was freezing and couldn't get my thumb and forefinger to do the pincer-thing, and once again had to approach the Master Guns to get him to do rudimentary things. Remember how last year I said that if I'd had a windbreaker on he'd have surely zipped it up for me just as solemnly? Turns out I was right. His buddy gave him some shit for it, but what the hell, it was amusing.

JUST NOW REMEMBERED running into Carl and Karen while waiting in line for my first porta-john at Mile 7.5, shortly after I said something so off-colour and suggestive that I actually made a Marine snort. So there were good moments in this race. Just very, very few of them.

Meanwhile, back at the "finisher's" festival, all I wanted was some medwrap. I could do without the ice pack, I was producing enough of my own cooling. Len dumped me at the medical tent with a hug and a promise to see me at dinner, because by that point I'd realised that there's no shame in being human, and what I'd gained in 22 miles--the knowledge that I have friends who love me enough to bail on a race finish for me--was something no medal could replace. But goddamn my knee hurt.

My IT band has an actual bruise on it. Hardcore.

Disturbingly, friend Moo was also in the medical tent, getting his foot wrapped. He reacted to my news of DNF with genuine distraught sympathy and the best hug ever before hobbling his way back to the metro. Meanwhile, I got checked out by Dr. Chris With The Awesome Giggle, who was kind of fantastic, despite the fact that everything he did to my IT band made me want to punch him in the face. Got some T, got myself wrapped up in those icy wrap band thingies, which for the record are the slimiest thing you want to imagine touching any part of you, and humped it back up in search of Clarendon Boulevard. Which I lose after the race every single year. I swear. This year I think I only went a block and a half out of my way.

Then I had to deal with the fact that my tracking results were making it appeared I'd PRed and made my A goal time with nine minutes to spare, and my friends were jubilant for me. Oof. By that time, all I wanted was to be warm. And a cheeseburger. Both of which I eventually got.

The postscript of this is, of course, I spent the next two days holed up on the ninth floor of my hotel, watching Hurricane Sandy pound the shit out of my beloved New York City and wondering how in hell I'm going to make it home. I'm heading out tomorrow morning, back to Doodlehem, where rumour has it I still have no power but now actually have access to my home. So that's a start. Next time, I'll tell you about Orgasm in a Cone, the rat abatement committee, and how to make Gunz turn purple and almost spit his beer out. But for now I'm sworn to secrecy.

As for the race of my lifetime? Next time, bitches. Just you wait. Your ass is mine. I'll get you in 2013. There's a lot of miles to be had between now and next fall. And I'mma run all of them.

RR El Scorcho 2012, Code Name: DFL

Honestly, so much happened last week in Texas that I'm having trouble processing it all. Some of that is because I came home with a whopping big coldish bug that will not leave my throat and head alone, piled on top of which is the fact that my freezer defrosted while I was gone, so I have to scrub strawberry blood out of every crevice of my freezer and fridge, and have lost an entire spring's worth of fruit that I'd frozen or made jams and jellies out of. Not to mention, the ice cream. This is truly a tragedy, one that I don't have the energy to comprehend right now.

So anyway, there will probably be a few posts on various other Texas shenanigans (because there were many, involving blogging friends old and new, learning to two-step, and a particularly memorable evening that culminated in getting driven home by the mayor of Rockwall...but we won't mention that...)

Meanwhile, back at El Scorcho, I immediately fell in love with this race when I met the RD, Jim Newsom of the Ft. Worth Running Company, who promised they wouldn't feed my dead body to the coyotes. I also scared the crap out of him by walking in off the street from 1500 miles away and knowing whose race bib he was holding in his hand to complete a waiting-list transfer.

Jesus is everywhere. And this is his bib.

The rest of the week was pretty much like an old blues song recorded by Rory Block

Double back to Fort Worth. 
Change cars on the Katy. 
Leaving Dallas, Texas. 
Coming through Rockwall. 
Now to Greenville. 
All the way back to Fort Worth, Texas. 
I'm on my way. 

 as I dropped off the enormous and excellently cool rental Jeep Liberty I'd driven down to Austin (see: other epic shenanigans, above) and exchanged it for a whole other world of trouble, otherwise known as my friend Jusko. As the member of our ever expanding and morphing group of running friends I knew least going into this gig, Jusko turned out to be the only one who actually was able to make this race, though he wasn't running it himself due to injury, except for our friend Chuck, who was running the 25k La Scorchita. Chuck is very quiet and unprepossessing, which can get lost in the chaos of our very...um, personality-heavy group, but he is a true friend--one that managed to find me in a tent city of several hundred spectators and participants, not having laid eyes on me in person since fall of 2007. And a good thing too, since I don't run with my glasses so I wouldn't have recognised him.

I got a delightful surprise about twenty minutes before the race (while I was scoping out the bathrooms, of course, which will surprise precisely none of you that know me) when Jusko said he was planning on running the first loop with me. I suspect this was more out of wistfulness than the actual desire to motivate me or keep me company, which he knew probably better than I did I would need later on in the evening. Er, morning. Whatever.

Oh wait. Let me back up quite a bit. 

Have I mentioned this race starts at midnight? Yeah. And it was ass-crack dark, to modify a recently learned phrase from a friend (hi Gunz!). Speaking of Gunz, he sent me a series of very encouraging and often hysterically funny texts in the days and hours leading up to this race. How can a girl not love a coach who makes her crack up just by remembering something he texted her earlier in the week, somewhere in the middle of Mile 22? ("coughcoughobama?" won't seem funny to you, but at 5 in the morning, more or less in context, it was almost as good as "ass cancer" and definitely did the trick.) He wins the prize for Person Most Likely To Put Up With My Whining While Simultaneously Handing Me a Straw this week. Probably this whole training period. He narrowly missed the Person Most Likely To Be the Recipient of My Bitching About Other People in General award by dint of the fact that I sometimes complain about him to Nita, on general grounds that he's a guy, so he occasionally needs bitching about. Nita, of course, can not in any way be confused with a guy.

So there I was, lined up at the start with Jusko, whacking frantically away at a Garmin that wouldn't unfreeze. Just how I want to start a race. I don't know what its problem was, but I handed the thing over to Jusko as we trotted along (the gun having of course gone off while I was having mechanical problems) who set it right and handed it back to me. Thus there was about a third of a mile hacked off the beginning of my record of this race. There was also almost a mile hacked off the end of it, when the battery died. Yes, I was out there that long.

I knew from the very first mile that this was not going to be a good race for me. It wasn't that I had a longer, steeper taper than usual, which I did. It wasn't that my back was bothering me, because it wasn't. It was the sheer heat and stupidity...er, humidity...the very thing that makes El Scorcho El Scorcho. And I knew this going in, but somehow it didn't really sink in until twelve minutes and eighteen seconds later, when I told Jusko that we were going to have to slow down, because, dude, I had 30.1 more of these to do yet. It was darker than a donkey's arse, thirteen minutes after midnight, and 86 degrees. It was going to be a very long night. Jusko had an advantage of not only being literally twice as fast as I am, but also for all intents and purposes a native-raised Texan. He was used to this crap. Still, he was very kind and followed my lead. 

The 25k start was ten minutes later, and it was not quite the end of the first loop before Chuck caught up with us while Jusko was fulfilling the dream he'd undoubtedly had all week of putting his hand up my shorts: I had decided that there was no way in fuck I was going to be able to wear a singlet, and he was repinning the bib to the leg of my compression shorts. I had started out in my Marine Corps Marathon 2011 singlet, because I wanted every single one of my fourteen or fifteen dearest running friends with me on this journey. You all are my inspiration, and my life is fuller for having known, run with, drank with, laughed with, cried with, prayed with, fought with, loved fiercely and too well or not well enough, and usually made up with you. (On that last one, I hope we still can someday. We miss you.)

My plan was to run each loop dedicated to a person or group of people. This isn't something I usually do, but I figured I'd need a little extra to get me through the night. And boy I was right.

Loop 1: Loops for MCMs with Straws. You know who you are. I don't need to say any more about this. You've had my back every day for five years now, and you had it more than ever Tuesday morning when the shit hit the fan and you showed me something I didn't properly appreciate until then, which is just how much I am loved. You humble me with your fierce love, your unruly tenderness, your unwavering sense of humor, and in some cases your probably literal willingness to kick ass and take names if necessary. Also, the joke about the cat on a stripper pole.

Loop 2: Dropped Jusko off, grabbed a peanut butter Gu at the campsite, and headed out. Loop 2 was for Len. Why? Because he's Len. It was Loop 2 when I settled into the grind, alternating between running and walking, because there was no other way this was going to happen, and it was Len who taught me that we are in this for the long haul, and when all else fails, you dial it back and live to run another day.

Loop 3: More Gu. Some Cytomax. Loop 3 is for Charlotte and Bill. They've had a heck of a year healthwise between them, and as two of my favourite people on this planet they do not deserve the crap that's been shoveled their way of late. Loop 3 is also where Chuck lapped me for the second time. For the record, I was trying to spit out the scraps of Gu wrapper stuck to my lip into the trash can when you saw me, not puking into it. How Chuck recognised me from the back while running at that speed after I'd dropped off my shirt is utterly beyond me, excepting the fact that I was probably the only short, stubby person running this race. I'm pretty sure he's never seen the lizard tattoo, so that couldn't have been it. After loop 3, I ditched my racing headlamp because I hadn't needed to use it, it was taking up space in my asspants, and anyone else could see me coming because of the incandescence of my pasty white abs.

Loop 4. Oh, loop 4, you sucked hardcore. Through the biggest, twistiest straw I have ever sucked. The heat was getting to me. My body was also remembering that it was, like, three in the freaking morning. I was hydrating just fine, but I wasn't retaining nearly enough salt. Hmmm.  This resulted in more walking than running, because I could not catch my breath and get my heart rate down to within normal range. Any time I started running, I got lightheaded and dizzy and not quite tunnel vision but definitely changed vision. Hmmmm.  Appropriately enough, this loop was for Jerry, who I miss like hell. No, it's not because you make me feel like puking.

Jusko had parked his tent just prior to the finish line, so loop 4 was also the longest loop timewise, because of what happened next. 

What happened next is I kicked Jusko's sock-foot through the open tent door and told him to wake up and get me some damn sea salt and vinegar potato chips before I passed out. My job was to fall over into the camp chair and have some water and try to catch my breath. He basically spoon-fed me some chips when I kept dropping them, and sat and talked to me while I sucked wind and prepared to meet my maker. I have no idea what he said, and it doesn't matter. What matters is that it kept me relatively oriented. Still, I was not in a good way. I had told him prior to the race--more than once--that after about four laps I was going to come into camp a bitch on wheels, and that his job was to feed me, pat me on the head, and point me out towards the course again, no matter what I said to him.

Instead, we crossed the trail and went to medical. Because I seriously wanted oxygen. I have never in my life gone to medical during a race (and I only went to medical on my own behalf after a race once, and that was because I landed on him when I fell across the finish line) and I sure as hell have never thought that a cannula sounded like a good plan, but I was seriously fantasizing about two oxygen prongs up my nose at this point. Hmmmm. I know I did a shitty job of expressing to medical what was wrong, because they kept asking if I had chest or shoulder pain, or tingling fingers. No, I'm not having a heart attack. And no, I do not want more goddamn water.  I understand that dehydration is probably the number one health problem they get into the van, but I'm damned if it's a problem I'll ever have. The medic couldn't find my pulse on my wrist. Hmmmmm. She then spent about another five or ten minutes trying to get it to track on her iPhone app. (I think she stopped worrying seriously about me when I looked her square in the eye and said with as much animation as anyone had seen out of me all night, "That is bitchin.") She couldn't get it to register a pulse on me. 

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Finally, a good fifteen minutes and many salty, salty potato chips later, she registered my pulse at 117. During this time, Jusko and I seriously discussed the possibility of my stopping the race after 25k--one last loop--and bagging the thing. The idea had a certain appeal. And then I thought of Len. And Nita. And Gunz. And oh fuck. There was no way that was happening. I was not going to puss out. The only way I was leaving early was if they carried me, and sadly I'm not stupid enough to let that happen (I know, because I tried). So I stopped the aborted attempt at crying (which wasn't successful, because, you know, salt, so fortunately I don't think Jusko even noticed it) and told the medic I would check back in after the next lap if I still felt bad. The potato chips were starting to do their thing, and so I trundled off into the wild black El Scorcho yonder.

Loop 5: Loop 5 was my Run 4 Joy, because sometimes you think things can never, ever possibly get any worse than they are....and then you catch a breath and are somehow able to keep going.

photo courtesy of Gunz K

Loop 6: Again with the kicking of Jusko to wake him up, because he'd promised (while squirming out of loop 5) that he'd run six with me. "Six and ten, baby, six and ten." But who the hell wants to be woken up out of a sound sleep at four AM to run three miles at half your normal pace? Not Jusko, apparently. Fine. Loop six isn't for you, anyway, it's for Nita. Who, in all fairness, warned me about most of this, and couldn't possibly have foreseen the rest. Oh Nita, honey, if only you knew how right you are, and how different this last week would have been if you hadn't been there for me all eight hundred times I needed you. Oh wait, that's every week. By loop six I was starting to get a little, well, loopy. The first half of the course kept getting shorter, and the last half of the course kept getting longer. What was with that? I'd get to the truck of whooping guys with the Eminem tunes shouting out encouragement to me, making me believe for about seven or eight strides that I really was ripping it up, and to Greeny the squeaky-toy sock monkey (hi Greeny! I was totally counting laps by you) and I'd feel ok. I'd think, "Oh, I'm here again, already." And then I'd have to go under those underpasses again, and through the utter damn darkness in the trees, and up the hill, and across those three bridges, and up the other hill, and....just damn. Also, I increasingly had to pee in places there weren't places to pee. Not that this has ever stopped me, but still. Loop 6 is also where the memory of something Gunz had texted me three days earlier made me cackle hysterically into the darkness, scaring some raccoons who were engaging in illicit raccoon activities.

Loop 7: Didn't even bother to wake Jusko. Frak this, man. I'mma just get me a Clif bar and keep going. Lots of race support out there, men who love me back because I tell them I love them when they hand me Gummi bears or a cold towel. You know, the simple, mid-race kind of love. You know they are runners too, because they get it. They get that a whole, entire 16-ounce bottle of water fresh out of the cooler may have just saved your sanity, if not your faith in the entirety of the human race. They ask you if you want them to put another one back for you, for the next lap. Loop 7 is for all the spectators, who made this one of the best races I've ever had a shitty time at. For serious. 

....until, suddenly, it does. Five more times.

Loop 8: rhymes with hallucinate. By this time, there were very few of us still out there. I spent some time alongside Mario, who was one of the very select few running the unadvertised 50-mile race. Mario's advice and encouragement to fellow runners was traditionally "Keep on, keepin' on." Because of that simple phrase, I had a change of plan. Loop 8 is for Maura, for the eight years she's been gone from her family, and for the loved ones who want her home at any cost.

I wasn't going to wake Jusko up until the last lap, because I knew he'd take that one with me, but when I pulled into camp at the start of lap nine, there he was, bright eyed and bushy tailed. He said he'd walk the last two with me (because, yeah, by then I was almost entirely walking, my plantar fascia in my left foot making itself known in a very disturbing way, not to mention general exhaustion and poop-ed-ness) and that he'd catch up. I forget what he had to go grab. I just kept hobbling on, doing what I do. Crossed the mat with four minutes to spare for the 50k cutoff. Jim gave me an amazing jazz-hands greeting, which turned to mild dismay when I told him I still had two laps left. (That's six miles, for those of you keeping score.) "Are ya gonna keep going?" he asked.

"Jim, I did not fly all the way here from PA to run part of a race."

"Well go gettum."

Loop 9: Jusko walked alongside me, taking inventory of what hurt, what wanted to fall off, whether I wanted anything to drink, all that good stuff a fellow runner is supposed to do. I mostly just ignored him, though at a few points I was tempted to hang on to see if he'd carry me a few yards (he wouldn't). Jusko can have loop 9, despite everything that happened later in the week, for giving up his home for a week, his Saturday night so he could sleep in a tent and get abuse heaped on him by a very cranky runner, his own bed Sunday afternoon when just looking at the flight of stairs to the guest bedroom brought me to tears, and for going out for cheeseburgers for breakfast while I was in the shower post-race. I was fairly delirious by this point, so if you want details, you'll have to ask him. By this point they were dismantling the race course itself, zipping around on golf carts and waving at the crazy lady who was still out there, keepin on.

Loop 10: Right at the start of loop ten, Jusko ran back to get my sunglasses out of my kit, because I couldn't do anything that involved fine motor coordination or the identification of simple objects like my thumbs. I sort of stood in the middle of the trail, wobbling, waiting for him to catch back up with me. Jason, the assistant race director, was just packing the last of the race into the back of the U-Haul. He asked me if I'd finished. No sir, got one left. Was I going to finish? Hell yes sir. "Well then let me get you your medal. But you have to promise you'll finish." Like I came here from Pennsylvania to cheat. Right. In fact, I made him give the medal to Jusko, because I didn't want to touch it until I'd earned it. 

It was about this point that I realised I really rather had to pee, and there was no way I was walking back to the porta-johns, because they were (a) too far off course and (b) behind me. So Jusko kept an eye out for places I could pee in relative seclusion, on account of it was 8 AM by now and there were regular Sunday morning joggers and cyclists in the park. We found a construction john, but it was in a locked fence that I couldn't navigate in that state. He asked me if I wanted to try to run some. I would have, but not until I had peed. Which I finally did, in some bushes that under normal circumstances wouldn't camouflage a skunk.  Ah! Bliss! 

We ran into Jason again with a mile and a half to go. His golf cart had died, and he was pushing it up the course's one hill. Jusko ran to help him. I just kept going. Just when I was starting to think he'd been gone long enough to push a golf cart wherever it wanted to go, he came back and informed me he'd moved the truck back to the camp so he didn't have to carry anything and I didn't have to walk. I think that was when I proposed to him. 

Dude. I think I see our tent. What had once been a barely distinguishable hump of olive green in a sea of tents, camp chairs, lounge chairs, runners, people dressed as Batman, Spiderman, and a convict (really, dude, that's not nice to do to people who are already hallucinating and running alone in a dark park, Richard!) was now a lone green igloo in a field, surrounded by empty parking lots and the parks cleaning crew. Jusko ran ahead with his camera to "capture the race finish" which was equal parts really sweet and....well, just really funny. But there is, somewhere in Rockwall, Texas, digital proof of me crossing a dusty swath where the finish mats used to be at something resembling a run. This is in addition to the lone official race photo of me, somewhere in the first twelve or fifteen miles. It ain't pretty, but damn if it ain't hardcore.

photo courtesy of Cowgirl Photography

Jusko hung the medal on me, hugged me, and said the most beautiful thing I have ever heard anyone say. "You did it, girl. Let's go home and get you a nap." Yes, let's. 

Loop 10 was for me. I distinctly remember the night on the group message board that people first started talking about signing up for ultramarathons, somewhere between my first Marine Corps and bowing out of Nashville due to injury. Because I'm one of the board admins, I could probably find the exact post if I wanted, but I don't need it. I remember saying, "Yeah, marathons are plenty for me. I can promise you I will never feel the need to do an ultra. That shit's just crazy."

Well, I am now a member of the crazy. I'm an ultra runner. I may not be again for a very long time (and I sure as hell won't make my next attempt while it's above 55 degrees) but once is all you need to claim that. Stupidity like that is forever.

I was a horror show Sunday night, not to mention getting off the plane Tuesday afternoon, but all things considered my legs actually feel pretty good five days out. On the other hand, I still have the cold from hell and can't stop sleeping.

Maybe next time you'll get to hear about my trip to Austin, the pilgrimage to Mellow Johnny's and Juan Pelota Cafe, Harmony, learning to two-step, Sadie the crazy lady, and how the mayor of Rockwall ended up driving me home, but not this time. (And I'm still saving that last one for blackmail purposes, Jusko. Just you wait.)

Now, with extra bling!

While I am unofficially the last El Scorcho finisher (figure that sentence out!) making me, in fact, DFL--those of you not runners, that stands for "dead fucking last"--I managed to place 125th out of 142 50k race starters, plus 58 DNS (did not start). How, you ask, did that happen? I kept going. Other people dropped out after 45k, despite being many hours ahead of me timewise, or 40k (I was the second place 40k finisher); several people did take the option to bow out after 25k and take their medal without the bonus. Quite a few even stopped after 20. So I was DFL, but I still came in ahead of almost twenty people.

All things considered, though, amazingly enough, dead fucking last? Feels pretty good.

The Big Stupid

Pretty funny. The folks at Sunday Scribblings have done it again.

Only I'm not actually training for a marathon at the moment. Marine Corps training doesn't officially begin for me until July 1.

Nope, this time I went for the Big Stupid. That's right, I'm running an ultra.

For those of you not crazy enough to live in the world of endurance sports, an ultramarathon is anything over 26.2 miles. This particular race is the logical (if running at one time for more miles than the average commute can be called logical) next step up, a 50k. Which is, after all, "only" another five miles past marathon distance.

Yes, I know I've only been out of PT ten months. Yes, I know it's incredibly masochistic to run 31 miles. In July. In Texas. In the middle of the night. With a new moon so there's no natural light. But I was sort of talked into it by Nita, Jimmy, Zeus, and Gunz (none of whom, it bears mentioning, are actually running the damn thing this year except Zeus, despite their promises. Though Nita might actually be there for ground support, which is good since she lives down the road. I'd hate to have to kill one of my favourite people. On her birthday, no less. You'll notice I didn't tell anyone what age you were turning. You're welcome.) and cemented when I found a roundtrip flight to DFW for less than $240.

Somehow it hasn't yet occurred to me that this will be even harder than any of my marathons. I'm hoping the ignorance will keep me at my current level of insanity.

Also, I seem to recall once saying, "I will never do an ultra. Those people are fucking crazy." Guess it's time to book that room at the hat factory.

RR Shamrock 8k and Half Marathon, Code Name: Billie's Bounce

First of all, if you don't understand the code name, you clearly don't listen to enough jazz. Nor have you met Deb's mom.

This is the race I accidentally spectated last year, having signed up for the so-called "Dolphin Challenge" sometime before all the ass-foolery that sidelined me. So I had a special appointment with St. Patrick's Day weekend in Virginia Beach this year.

Um, you might have noticed some talk about my complete lack of training. There was a lot of that. Some of you seriously underestimate my ability to undertrain. I was deeply worried not only about potential reinjury (honestly, though, aren't you getting tired of hearing that? I'm getting tired of worrying about it, frankly) but also complete mortification and being lapped by marathoners who started 15 miles and 90 minutes south of me. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself. (See? I even got lapped by this blog post.)

Crazy week, crazy semester, packed in about fifteen minutes Thursday night without doing laundry (which resulted in a very funky sports bra experience during the 8k, I am sorry to say) and by the time I left Friday morning I was sure I'd forgotten something, or my leg was going to fall off, or I was going to be arrested on entering the State of Virginia, or I don't know what all. I just didn't feel focused. I did, however, manage not to get lost driving around the Hampton Roads area for the first time in the history of the universe. Not once all weekend. I did miss a turn, but it was hiding behind a shrub. Not even my iPhone was expecting it to be there. Went straight to the expo, missing the Blisses, Jerry, and Gunz by about three minutes. Of course. Spent about a minute and a half in it picking up both bibs, scoring a pair of my favourite Mizunos for less than my monthly internet bill, and yakking with Team Hoyt VB and these fine ladies from LiveSTRONG, as they know a friend of mine from last year's Ride for the Roses.

LiveSTRONG ladies say hi Rica!

Left the expo in a big hurry, ran into the only other two people I know in the area, one of whom I've known since high school, checked into the hotel, and hoofed it up Atlantic Avenue to meet the crew for dinner.

Whereupon of course it started raining. Bucketing, actually. By the time I got to the restaurant, my hair was soaked, my Chucks were soaked, my underwear was soaked--then I hugged Gunz and Gunz was also soaked. Hey, I warned him. Had a sad bowl of mac and cheese that was actually quite good and seemed to be penne in alfredo sauce, but I really wanted chicken alfredo. Alas, it was Friday. It was Lent. I may not be really good about being Catholic in ways that matter, but for the life of me I can't eat meat on a Lenten Friday. To save my life.

After a certain amount of beer,

(glug)

and several goofy multi-race plans for the fall (go ahead, Gunz, I dare you; no, I double devil-dog dare you to run back-to-back marathons on back-to-back weekends) and lovely conversations with Deb's mom Billie (the titular one, in fact), I was escorted back to my hotel on the ass end of the planet--seriously, it's the only thing further out of town than my start corral--and only managed to be a moderate asshole to Gunz after he delivered me to my doorstep. I must be losing my touch. Anyway, got upstairs to my room and a text and turned on the TV just in time to see the last six seconds of holy shit possibly the biggest upset in the history of NCAA basketball. Seriously. The one weekend I'm not in town, and this happens. We do love us some CJ, here in Doodlehem.

Needless to say, that wrecked any pretense of sleep for the next hour. Add to that the beer, the restlessness, the general stupidity, and I kid you not I was up every 90 minutes until 5:45 when the alarm went off. I was not a happy FireCat.

The 8k was kind of fun--the best thing about a distance like that is it's an automatic PR. Yes, I've never run an 8k before. They can't count to eight in Pennsylvania, everything has to be a multiple of five. Didn't feel awful, didn't feel great, just ran. And then they gave me beer and cookies. I was back in the hotel by eleven, tried desperately (and failed) to nap for a lot of the afternoon. Caught up on some reading for school. Laid low. Didn't even get down to the beach the entire weekend because any time I wasn't running, it was cold and grey and foggy and windy as hell. Seriously?

Oh, also let me not forget to mention the extreme stomach distress that immediately followed the 8k. I attributed it to something weird I'd eaten (probably the Filet O Fish on the drive down, because...you know, Friday) but things were....ahem. Well. Unpleasant. And mostly not in a way that you can take care of by puking in the middle of the street, which as we all know is perfectly acceptable behaviour during a distance race. So I was really worried about Sunday. Didn't eat a lot at dinner, stayed with whole wheat pasta with chicken and broccoli, no cheese whatsoever, no dessert, no beer...all in all it was a very sad dinner. Also, there was no Sweet Caroline sing-along this year, because we couldn't get reservations there. Still, good craic and I didn't actually get sick during dinner.

By Sunday morning the worst of the grumblies had settled down, and I hadn't yarfed in like 15 hours, so I figured I was good to go. Or as good as it was going to get. I had no plan. My plan was to run until I fell over, let the medics tape me up, and then run some more. Actually, that's not too far from my usual plan. I decided to stay with Deb, who was staying with her mom Billie, for as long as I could, judging from the times at the 8k. And damn, those ladies are some fine pacers. Billie just puts her head down and goes. Deb gives her advice or split times or pace from time to time, but mostly just does the border collie thing and keeps Billie in sight. I trained my eyes on Deb's Michigan visor and imprinted on them like a little baby duck (apologies to one of you, because I know I stole that from someone who ran Wineglass in the shitting-down rain last year, but I forget who) and just kept waddling and quacking. 

Despite feeling like I was going to die a couple of times, I also felt good some of the time, and managed to keep up their pace until about Mile 8.5, when I started to get that head-squeezy feeling that says, "Um, you should walk now." And, really, if that's going to happen, Fort Story is not a bad place for it. So I let my mama ducks go and did some check-in with myself. And my self was starting to think this was stupid. On the other hand, there were no fewer than FOUR, count them FOUR beer stops (ok, one was the Hashers on the return loop) so I was getting lots of good carbs at least, some of it served to me by my friend Moo in a green dress. (Let me explain that Moo is a guy. Thus, green dress being notable.) More than anything, I was tired, and warm. Nothing particularly hurt. No, wait. I mean, it hurt, but it didn't....you know, hurt hurt. 

Hit Mile 10 in pretty decent time. Hit Mile 11 in...wait a minute. Is that right? That can't be right. Hit the LiveSTRONG corner right at Mile 13 and realised that unless I fell over and required medical assistance in the next 150 yards, I was somehow going to PR in a race for which I was completely untrained. I'll be damned. The Nita Training Plan works.

Hit the mat, got my medal, got my cookies and beer, found Deb and her mom and Jerry (who had also all had really good races) and stood around kicking ourselves for not signing up for alerts for Gunz, who was running the full. In a kilt. Because he is an idiot. But he's our idiot.

There are some things you can never unsee.
This is one of them. You're welcome.

After a good while I found Flex. Flex! Flexmeister! Flexorama! Also known as Jon Leiding, Flex had just tied himself to four other men and set a Guinness World's Record by running the marathon in 3:06 (which is also within 90 seconds of his PR not tied to anybody, as far as I can remember).

I love Flex. Big Flexy love.

Stood around yakking with Flex and his wife, Nicole, and Shep. Still no Gunz. Decide to head for my car. It was then that I remembered that Gunz is like Goldbug from my old Richard Scarry books. He's always popping up somewhere when I'm not looking for him. Therefore, I proceeded to run smack damn into him. And he did not look particularly good. In fact, he looked like I'd felt most of the day before, like he just wanted to find the nearest couch and sack out for three or four days. Still, it was nice to know he wasn't dead.

Ran into Nicole around then and ended up waiting with her for her husband, finishing his first full marathon. When he finally limped in, he looked like hell, but once he crossed the finish line reality set in and he was floating on air. I have never seen someone more proud of an accomplishment, and I doubt anyone deserves to be. In the last year and a half, Brian has lost 150 pounds and started exercising for the first time really ever. And here he is, a marathoner. Damn, Whitaker. Way to earn that medal, bro. Wear it proud. (PS, you look really good in running shorts.)

By this time I was hungry, cranky, having post-race, post-seeing-my-friends letdown, and had a six-hour drive home. And class to teach in the morning. Ugh. So I hit the road. Made pretty decent time up the Eastern Shore, but still didn't get home in time to hear Lehigh lose to Xavier (thanks for keeping me updated via constant text, Deb!) As usual, couldn't be arsed to take a hot soaky bath. Just went straight the fuck to bed. Woke up the next morning to discover that Billie had placed second in her age group! Go mom! Also woke the next morning to discover that my quads were, in fact, entirely trashed. Colour me surprised. 

Needless to say, I did not hold office hours in my third floor office on the side of a mountain Monday morning. If anybody really needed me, they could follow the creaking to the first floor lounge.

So. Not a particularly memorable race, partly because I was focusing really hard on keeping up (the thing I remember most clearly on the course, sadly, is the remains of a car-flattened fox in First Landing State Park) but memorable as always for the company I kept, and the stupid ideas we came up with for next time.

RR Dirty Bird 15k Trail Race, Code Name: A Finish Is a Win

A year ago, I signed up for my first trail race, more or less on a dare from Carl. Because he sucks. I grew up literally running around in the woods behind my house, and have often been accused of being part mountain goat, so it seemed like a good fit. Then I had that Epic Battle of Wills with my lower back. The day before last year's Dirty Bird, I called Carl from the ER. "Listen, dude, I don't think I'm going to be able to run tomorrow. I'm really sore. I'm just going to go have some x-rays, and I'll--"

At this point the ER nurse took my phone from me, held it to her ear, said matter of factly, "Dude, she's not running tomorrow," hit the disconnect button, and dropped the phone onto my stomach.

I spent the morning of Dirty Bird gorked out of my mind on narcotics, alternating between the two positions that felt least like being stabbed in the ass with a pitchfork, staring at the bedroom ceiling and texting pathetically back and forth with my friend Gunz, who can now apparently confirm that I'm very entertaining (and a very creative speller) when I'm on drugs. It was about four degrees out, though I don't think it was actually snowing, and my dad piled two extra comforters onto the bed--partly to stop me from shivering, because it hurt so goddamn much, and partly to help wedge me into position. I wasn't even in my own bed, because I couldn't get up and down the stairs to the bathroom. I was, in short, a sweet hot wreck.

This year I made extra special preparations for Revenge of the Dirty Bird. To start with, I was exceedingly careful putting on my underwear all weekend. On top of that, I actually ran after MCM this year. All of about three times. None of them were on trails. I don't know the woods around here well enough yet, I'm up to my kiester in a PhD, there are papers to grade that I've had so long I forget what the assignment was, etc. etc. and etc. So, yeah. I was totally prepared for this race. I figured I had about three things going for me: the fact that, as I said, I grew up running around in the woods pretending I was doing this exact thing; the fact that I have a very low center of gravity; and the fact that have I mentioned yet this week that my campus is on the side of a fucking mountain? So I do a lot of walking uphill. A lot.

This Sunday, I did even more.

It started Saturday night, when I proceeded to get a nasty shock via text message at a quarter to midnight, when I was on my way to bed. So I slept badly until the alarm went off at 6:30. Ate breakfast (I really did, I swear. I watched myself do it.), had tea, wrangled myself into compression tights, packed dry shoes and socks and a clean shirt for after, stuffed myself in my car, and pointed it towards Birdsboro.

Let me address something here. The location of this race left something to be desired. My ex-husband and I almost bought a house in Birdsboro, right before he left me. In fact, while we were falling in love with the house, he was already talking about leaving me. The park where the race was held is one of the last happy memories I have from our life together in PA, before we moved to Putnamistan and things went more or less to hell in a happy meal. I also pretty much had to drive past his parents' house to get to the start line. Add that to my late-night conversation Saturday and I was in a swell mood.

On checking in, my mood was much improved by the fact that Carl is oblivious and couldn't see me standing right in front of him in a parking lot with two dozen cars in it. I hadn't seen him in (gasp!) a whole month, so hugs and rude hand gestures were in order. Actually, we hadn't gotten to hang out much at MCM, so it was extra good to see him (except the part where he took off his shirt and asked me if his nipples were still properly taped. There's an image I never want again.)

Then it occurred to me that I was about to run ten miles. And I was hungry again. Fuck. Who signed me up for this? Oh right. Carl.

I peed no fewer than three times before we lined up at the start. I use the phrase "line up" very, very loosely. It was more like we assembled in a gaggle-fuck at the start banner while RD Ron gave us last minute instructions. They mostly consisted of useful tidbits like, "There should be an orange ribbon every half mile at least. If you go more than a half mile without an orange ribbon, you're screwed. What you then need to do is turn around and go back to a place where you aren't screwed and proceed from there." And my personal favourite, "The first rule of trail racing is, if the sign doesn't say to turn, don't turn."

The first quarter mile was on asphalt, and I actually kept up with Carl for a bit, before it dawned on me that I am not a sprinter, and I am not warmed up. So I tucked in behind him. He very thoughtfully waited for me at the part we veered off onto the trail, and we trundled up the hill together for a little bit before I let him do his mountain goat thing. I have little stubby legs. I was also a little overwhelmed, wondering what (the hell) he had gotten me into.

Seriously. What the fuck am I doing this for? I am walking up the side of a mountain. In the mud and leaves. For a mile and a half. No joke. From this point on, I was mostly alone. Which is fine, whatever. I train alone, when I'm hiking in the woods I'm alone, and I like it that way. Also, this way no one can see how slow I am. I did actually pass two people by the second mile, which was impressive because they'd caught up to me on the uphill. Go mountain goat ninja skills.

So I toddled along for a couple of miles, wondering exactly where the hell I was going, taking it all in, blowing my nose a lot, and just generally being a FireCat in her natural habitat. Rocks, twigs, dead leaves, nose-blowing, mud. After the first water stop there was a perfectly lovely stretch of pine forest, which always makes me homesick.

Frankly, this race is a big blur to me, not like MCM because I was in pain, but because one boulder hiding in the mud under a clot of dead leaves pretty much looks like another boulder hiding in the mud under a clot of dead leaves. And there was a lot of that. One of which I caught a shoe on, resulting in Epic Face Planet Numero Dos of my trail running career (which leads me to Infinite Mystery Numero Uno: why when I land on my face is it always my ankle that hurts the next day?) Got up, took a quick inventory. No blood, no bones poking through, ok, keep going.

When I hit the dam crossing, I noticed that more and more people were coming back at me. I was being lapped by people as old as my dad. Dude. This was demoralizing. What was even more demoralizing, in a weird way, was how gamely everyone encouraged me. Not more than one or two people went by without a genuine, "Good job," "Good run," or one guy, who is my new favourite person on the planet, "Looks good, baby." Looks good, yeah. Can't run for shit, though.

And then, there were more hills. All of which were up. And more mud, and fallen trees to vault over (or climb under) (or both, on more than one occasion) and oh yes, the water feature.

You may or may not be aware of this, but Pennsylvania has shattered all rainfall totals this year, thanks to the world's wettest August. And September. And most of October, too. Add that to the snowstorm on Halloween weekend, and the trails were, um, festively technical. Translation: one section of the trail was now a stream. With a waterfall. And fish. Yeehaw. Somehow, I managed to not fall all the way down in the mud, though I did lose my footing a couple of times. I also came down hard a couple of times on the downhills, jarring my back in a worrisome sort of jar.

Then there was one last hill. Except it wasn't the last hill. I only thought it was the last hill. My victory was short-lived. Because there was the last hill, still ahead of me. I felt like the Bear Who Went Over the Mountain. And the two people I'd passed caught up with me. (uphill is apparently not my strength.) I was hungry. I was tired. My calves were starting to be distinctly unpleased with the state of the up-ness. Whine bitch nag moan. I was pretty sure there were people still behind me (considering I had just passed one of them) but I was still feeling pretty slow. And cranky.

And then I met Charlie Horse, official Wasatch 100 pacer. Also traffic director at the last road crossing of Dirty Bird 15k. Boy that old man can run. "Hi! I remember you--I parked you this morning. Just follow me," and he took off like a gazelle. I didn't have a whole lot of choice. I followed him. Seriously, I think I ran that last half-mile at a 9:00 pace. He pointed my way back into the woods, and I crashed through the shrubbery and back onto the path past the dock, past the restrooms with which I'd become so familiar, past the cars filing out after changing their clothes and finishing their soup and hanging out with their friends ("Finish strong! You look great!" someone yelled out the window. This might be the same guy who called me baby earlier. I would advise him to get his prescription checked), towards the finish clock, and holy shit there's Carl. The asshole who got me into this.

"Dude, you waited for me."

He gave me That Look. The one that only running-family can give other members of running-family. (Not the "you're not a cheeseburger" look, or the "did you just finish my beer?" look. The other look.) "Of course I waited."

Well, yeah. The field was less than 400 deep, and I just found out today I only finished 20 minutes and 8 places behind him, so it's not like he was out there waiting for hours, but still. "No, I mean, you waited for me."

He continued to look at me like I had three heads and go, "Yeah, of course I waited," so eventually I dropped it.

I don't think he gets it. No one's ever waited for me at the finish before, and I've expressed much consternation about that here, though not nearly as much as I feel. People have sworn up and down that they'll run me in at the last half-mile, or they'll come back for me after they make their way through whatever finish festival, but I'm almost always hoofing it on my own back to the hotel to shower and meet up with them. I'm that slow. I'm not left behind, exactly, these guys would never abandon me (and some of you will probably kick my ass for ever even having thought that, and yes I'm looking at you Nita and Gunz) but simply because of my pace, I'm left to fend for myself for the hardest part of the race and its aftermath, which is why running those first fifteen miles with Len last month was so special, why getting to run Philly with Mags in September was so awesome (beyond the fact that I hadn't seen her in well over a year). I started distance running as a way to deal with the upheaval of my divorce, and it's true what they say about the loneliness of the long-distance runner (not that 15k is actually all that long. Unless you're in the woods on the side of a mountain.) But Sunday morning Carl taught me something I never imagined: I still have family, at least for a couple of hours last Sunday, in Berks County.

Who the hell knew?