18 weeks to go

I have decided to run the John Holmes 50k on October 9th. It's taken me a little bit of time to come to this conclusion, but it is set. Registration in the mail, shoes on the feet, and toe nails no where to be found.

Running in Brooksville

Forest Meadows

I like to wake up around 7:00 am on the week ends, it's my comfort zone. I watch sportscenter, drink my coffee, have breakfast, walk around the apartment, and lazily pull on my gear. All at my leisure of course. But I am afraid that time has come and gone, because it's 90 degrees with 95% humidity at 8:00, this is summer. When the weather changes from the overcast and chilly winter, to the gloriously fragrant spring, runners can be seen at all hours of the day. You see them in morning, jogging along, plugged into an ipod. You see new outfits, matching shorts to fresh sneakers, women without sweat gliding through parks. You see men pulling their dogs, excited to be alive and testing the athleticism of their canine friend. But as May melts into June, those runners recede back into their air conditioning. The trails clear and the sidewalks go empty. Afternoons are reserved for napping and pool lounging and ice tea replaces gatorade and gu. But I can't stop. Because this is how I deal with my problems and those don't recede as the temperature rises. Running is my secret weapon in engineering school. It's how I calm down, it's how I learn to take things slow and focus. So this Sunday, I was out there, running the trail with a full sized beach towel and a gallon of water waiting for me at the end. It felt like I was literally running through hell. If hell had 95% humidity, which I'm sure it does. There were others, a pack of four men keeping a quick pace ran past me as I made my way around the lake. There was a couple of lone wolves jogging up the hills, getting their shoes dirty with dry red clay. But gone were the girls with their perfums, gone were their coordinating outfits and fresh out of the box asics. Only sweat and mud. Only bugs and humidity.

It's a love hate thing

I have a couple of months "off". It's not that I'm on the couch as much as I'm switching it up for the sake of my joints. I've been injury free, knock on wood, and it's time for me to give these old bones a bit of a rest. It's getting hotter, and the pool is looking cooler and cooler- so it's a triathlon in August then. But let me say this, I hate hate hate how much crap is involved in this sport. Special suit that costs $200, a couple grand on a bike, special shoe laces, special sunglasses, special sunscreen! Give me a break. I don't want to sound snooty, but I'm not going to buy any of that crap, and I'm going to beat all those dudes that are suckered into it.

Tomorrow I'm getting dunked (body fat tested) and given a starting point. I know I have some to lose, so it's more exciting than anything. Another busy one tomorrow, but now that I have a new goal- it's game on. Ya'll buy your $100 compression shorts, they won't save you from the beat down. Word.

The end

Two hours had passed since I'd last seen that particular trail. It was long, with a steep decline, I had cruised down it whipping through the brush and bounding over rocks. I remembered how it felt to throw my arms out to my side like wings stabilizing my foot steps. But now faced with the opposite task of the last climb, the other side of the proverbial coin, I couldn't remember how it felt to fly. My legs sunk into the ground with each step as if gravity had somehow increased, by body felt like it was tied to the earth's core. Just a couple more steps, left foot right foot left foot right foot. I saw Mike, I saw the finish, I saw some cookies and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It all ended so fast. I wanted to enjoy the last strides but all I could think about was the moment at which my legs would be permitted to stop and all of this would be in the past. Marty handed me a trophy and I sat down at the picnic table drenched in sweat. Next year, I'm running the 50k.

About one mile

Somewhere on the trail, I had begun to hear footsteps behind me. It had been a while since I'd joined the pack and I was very familiar with their calf muscles and the form of their stride. Even now as I write this, I can see the man in blue's back perfectly, the shape of his shoulders and the back of his head. But these foot steps were not his, and I became aware of the fact that my body was slowing down. The man in blue was drifting farther and farther ahead of me, I could see flashes of his jersey through the trees and then at the top of a peak, but I wasn't catching him. And now the footsteps behind me were getting louder. I turned around to see a man in his forties staggering up an embankment. I let him pass. His name was John and apparently he had been watching me like I was watching the man in blue. We made it to a gatorade stop in the middle of no where. I was getting tired and I didn't know where I was in the race. My legs felt weak, but not broken. Same with my spirit. I smiled at him and he gave me some encouragement. I enjoyed having someone there, someone in front of me. But I took off first without paying much attention. I think that I was debating whether to eat or not. That's probably the most foreign part of long distance running, the deciding to eat in the middle of a really long run. So there I was thinking about Gu and running the wrong way into woods that I wasn't familiar with. The gu may have saved me from worse, I stopped to choke it down, and John passed me. A couple minutes after I started to run in the wrong direction, he turned me around, saying something about a road down the way. We had only gone about 10 minutes down path before turning around. It was my fault that we went in that direction, me and my stupid brain.
By now, I had no idea what position I was in, where I was, how much longer, or whether or not I could continue at this pace. My legs began to shut down. I could feel my quads burning on the down hills, I no longer whipped around trees or jumped from rock to rock. The feeling of immortality was replaced by fear as I prayed to whoever would listen that I didn't break my neck on the way down the slopes. I dug deep to get up the hills, hoped I survived the going down, and thanked my lucky stars whenever I'd see what looked to be a pretty even surface. I've never felt anything more terrifying than the drop offs and nothing more reguvinating than that fire break. I splashed through muddy creek beds and got caught on hanging ivy. The man in blue had disappeared over a ridge long ago, and I hadn't seen John in a half a mile. I missed his back. I missed seeing anybody. At one point I just yelled out, I wanted to know that some body was out there, but nobody answered me. After getting lost, I became paranoid that it would happen again. I checked my watch, it was my only indicator of how far I might have gone. Some runners have those crazy garmin contraptions that tell them how far, how fast, and how long they've gone- everything except run the race for them. But mine just says, "yo girl, you've gone 2 hours and 40 minutes." I imagine that it's in a southern accent, but I can't be sure. For the next thirty minutes, I stumbled through the miles. Please, how far away is the picnic area? There was a man with a camera pointed at a plant in the distance, he looked at me with wide eyes. I looked derranged, with sweat and mud caked on my face. I asked him again and he responded with the least appreciated measure of distance on the face of the planet, "About 1 mile". Let it be known, America, tired runners hate hearing that something is one mile away, even if it is ACTUALLY one mile away and even more so if it isn't. The next group of people, our camping neighbors, told me the same thing-- about a mile away from the man with the camera. So somebody was lying and I was slowly deteriorating.

Snake girl

Before I left for Torreya, I pulled Shannon aside and told her a deep dark secret. For the first time, I was going to win a race. I felt good, my legs felt like springs. I had been resting more, training faster and harder, my arms were stronger and I wanted to win. I told her that I had put myself in a position of strength, that I wanted to capitalize on it.
Mike and I got to the forest a little bit late, but we arrived. The ranger looked at us and asked Mike how he was going to do in the race. I shrunk back behind him suddenly aware of how short I really was. He then proceeded to explain to us the recent copperhead infestation and my heart immediately sank in my chest. How, certain trails had to be shut down in the afternoon hours because of the danger. Snakes, why did it have to be snakes?
We made our way down to the camp site, I made a couple comments about confidence and the hills looking fairly benign. I kept my eyes on the trail, ready for one of those slithery demon serpents to rise out of a wood pile. A mile later, we set up our tent, attempted for a couple hours to build a fire, read a vanity fair magazine, and ate some pasta I had brought. I went to sleep excited, but not scared, for the morning to come. Oh how little did I know, how little did I know...
Every race is pretty much the same, pick up t-shirt, pin number, undress a little bit, hang around in the parking lot, and judge the other people based on their calf muscles. As I stuffed a dry bagel into my mouth and laced up my shoes, it became pretty evident that I was the youngest person there. A couple dudes in their forties chatted loudly about their exploits, most people had previous marathon t-shirts on. I stripped down to my shorts, revealing my own tight leg muscles, the tan line above my knee, the stamped 26.2 tattooed on my quad. I felt somewhere between a rookie and a runner. I respected those who sought to beat me, respected the amount of time these people had put into the sport. But when we lined up, and the gun went off, that was the last time I saw most of them.
Oh, so that's a cattle stop. There were bars across the trail that protected a deep trench. We ran down hills and up them, I vaulted over trees that were blocking the sugar sand path. I bounced from rock to rock across small trickling streams, and pulled on roots with my hands to lift my body over embankments that towered over me. This did not feel like Florida, I felt like a kid in the mountains. Like I did when my mom, Nancy, and I would go camping in North Carolina. Except this time I wasn't clutching my round midsection, wheezing on the way up. This time I was running 15.3 miles straight through it. I watched the man in front of me, where he stepped, I stepped. Small, powerful strides, but light foot steps. The man in front of him talked the whole time, and to say it was entertaining would be an understatement. I was thankful it was him, I didn't know if I could speak a word. My heart had begun to beat faster and I hear my breath rising in cadence. He yelled back to the small pack, "Run when you can, walk if you can't, stop if you have to!" We stayed together for a while, I'd say the first ten miles or so. So far no snakes, only giant mounds of dirt displaced by wild boar and holes to the center of the earth. I thought I saw bear tracks and instead of every snake trying to look like a root, this time, every root looked like a snake to me. I felt good, better than I had anticipated. But the climbs kept coming, and every time I'd reach a peak, a little part of my legs died. And I didn't realize it, until that water station in the woods and the missed turn that started the battle.

To say that I've felt lost for a week or so would be an understatement. It's a strange result that comes from achieving a goal that takes a lot of time and effort. I worked hard for about 5 months, and now, I don't have anything. Like it was there, on the horizon, looming for so long and seeming so far away. And now that the race is over I don't have anything to push for, so I end up eating chocolate chip cookies, drinking white wine, and watching hours of the olympics (of course this is while doing harmonic wave equations). What do I do now? I've spent a lot of time on the internet, looking for what's next. I have a 50k scheduled for October- 8 months away. I may be down in B-Ville running the Flatlanders if it isn't canceled. Maybe in April I'll fit a 25k in, maybe push a little harder than I'm used to and finish fast. But man, this is going to take some adjusting. I'm heading out the door for a Wednesday 10 miler. I can't seem to get pumped for anything that takes less than an hour to complete, I guess I just love the long run too much.

And now what?

So in the past week, I have done pretty much nothing outside of school and housework and job hunting. But now I'm back, and I'll have more to say later. New goals:

1. Thomasville Road 10k (our old neighborhood)
2. Flatlanders 10k April 3rd
3. October 2010 John Holmes 50k

I should have written in this more, maybe a running journal is a little bit too self centered, but now I look back on it and see that I had my first 11 mile run and that was my last entry. Well, since then, I'm pretty happy to say that I kept running. I ran in the cold and in the snow and in the rain. I ran in the red clay mud that was this year's GWTC 30k. I ran every single Saturday morning. I started at the 10 mile challenge, worked my way up to 20 miles, and now I'm in the two week hell they call tapering. When you go from running 45+ miles a week to half that, and then a quarter! Jesus H. it can bring a girl down. I want to run so bad it hurts, I want to lace 'em up and push it to it's limit, just like I've been doing for the past 4 months. Six miles on a wednesday just isn't the same. I want to run so hard that I throw up, I want to hit the wall. Maybe that's what the taper is, it's a time where you get to sit back relax and let your body rest as your mind goes bananas. A week from tomorrow I'll get my chance. 26.2 miles never looked so good. I just want to run again. And when it's over, I'm not going to stop. There will be more marathons, and more miles, and more hill repeats. I've loved every last second of this training period. I've embraced every Friday night at home, every time I had to say "no thanks, I can't have that glass of wine, I'm training tomorrow morning", every t-shirt from every race I never thought I could complete.
Last February, when I was working at Bella, a man came in with his family and sat at table 5. He ordered spaghetti, she had a glass of wine, but he didn't. I don't remember asking him, but he told me that he was here from Georgia to run the marathon. Now I look back on it and think that he probably couldn't help but tell me, it was probably all he was thinking about. Either way, I stood back and thought, I'm going to do that. I'm going to run the marathon next year. And next week end, I'm going to fucking do it.