The Before And The After

This post will be written in two parts: The Before and The After.

The Before:
It's 10:30AM. Moana is taking a nap. I'm still waiting to go running. Because at 10:30 it isn't quite hot enough yet. Ha. Actually, while it's fun to blame Jen for making me wait this long to run, in reality I would have waited anyway. Surf was up this morning so Scott got up early and went surfing before his soccer game that he's playing right now. So I actually didn't even have a chance to run this morning while it was cool out.

Waiting so long to start poses some challenges. First of all, it gave me a chance to read Marit's blog in which she described her 20 miler yesterday as possibly the ugliest run ever. Sweet. Now I'm really looking forward to mine. BUT, she got through it even though she was feeling completely crappy so clearly I have to finish mine as well no matter how much it sucks.

Secondly, what the heck do you eat all morning when you've got a 3 hour run looming at noon? Have to eat something, but clearly can't eat too much, but since I'll be eating GU and Clif Bloks for lunch I'll probably be really hungry... or not... if its really that hot out maybe I'll just be nauseous. Anyway, I drank my coffee out of my Ironman mug from 2007 for some inspiration. Then I ate 2 eggs and toast with honey, followed several hours later by a bowl of grapenuts. Hopefully that'll get me through.

The good news is that running later gave me time to charge my garmin and my ipod. And I came up with a special playlist for this run. You can really add a lot of songs when you're making a 3+ hour playlist, ya know? I put some slower mellow songs in the beginning to encourage me to take it easy to start. After about 30 songs I put like 8 in a row that are faster hardcore rap songs... like 'Til I Collapse' by eminem. I think that'll be a good one. I know Jen said to do 5 miles hard in the middle of this run, but seriously, that's ridiculous. 8 songs will be about 30 minutes and surely that's enough, isn't it? I followed those 8 songs up with JoDee Messina's 'My Give A Damn's Busted', because that's very likely how I'll be feeling after a 30 minute push. Toward the 3 hour mark I put Rodney Atkin's 'If You're Going Through Hell'. That'll be appropriate I think.

"Well you know those times when you feel like there's a sign there on your back says 'I don't mind if you kick me seems like everybody has.' Things go from bad to worse, you think they can't get worse and then they do.
If you're going through hell keep on goin', don't slow down. If you're scared don't show it. You might get out b'fore the devil even knows you're there. If you're going through hell, keep on moving face that fire, walk right through it. You might get out b'fore the devil even knows you're there."

So anyway, clearly I've got some really high expectations about how I'm going to feel on this run. Ha. Scott has been instructed to bring home a 5 lb bag of ice so I know that'll be waiting for me, so that's good. I used up all the ice in our freezer for a long ice bath yesterday after that long brick- I didn't even want to get out of the tub- it felt so good! I actually just wanted to dunk my whole body in that icy water but feared a heart attack from the massive shock it would have been to my overhot torso.

Who knows? Maybe it won't be as bad as I'm envisioning. Here I go.

The After.

Yip yip yip! Mama ran. And ran. And ran. And then kept running. And then ran some more. And Did. Not. Slow. Down. 20.5 miles in just under 3 hours.

Seriously, out there I was like, "Whose legs are these?? Not mine. Are they Jen's? Are they Marit's? Are they Ange's?" It was like I stole somebody else's legs for the weekend.

But then I started telling myself, "No, these are your legs, Michelle. Your new legs. You have earned them. Every track workout. Every long run. Every brick run you have done this summer. You earned these legs. And they are yours to keep!"

So that's about all I have to say about that run. I ran out for 1:30:00 and turned around and ran back in 1:29:43. Uphill the last 2 miles. In the sun. And the heat. But was it hot? Not really.

Jo Dee Messina's song came on at about 2:25 into the run and you know what? My give-a-damn wasn't busted at all.

I can't wait for Kona.