my half marathon

friday night I had running dreams. I dreamed that my mother had a big pre-run party and i got caught up in something and suddenly i heard the gun go off and knew the race had started and i wasn't anywhere near the starting line. i had to run from where i was to where the racers were at that point.

anxiety dreams!

saturday i woke up and went for coffee. and amy came down to lend me her running watch... and i ended up convincing her to come on the weekend because even if she couldn't run it would be a good thing to be there. we'd been training for this together for 6 months. so she ran up and packed and last minute decided to go. you can read her account of her experience.

the house we stayed in in carmel was on a hill and had a giant balcony overlooking the ocean and beaches of carmel. point lobos. carmel valley. very beautiful

we ate a big pasta feed and drank water by the buttload.

surrounded by my friends and my mother's friends.

and there's a calendar of the men in my mother's group of athletic sixty-somethings. (The Full Monterey it's called) my step father is in it. naked (no privates showing) ...and all these men are truly athletes. you can't tell they're older than 30something in these lovely black and whites.

in bed by 10

sunday morning, we woke up at 5am. drinking coffee and getting into our running gear. bagels and peanut butter. bananas. we left for the race before 6. in the dark, cold stars and moon above us.

my nerves were a lot better than they had been! amy had decided to try running. at least a 5k distance.

we started as the sun came up at 7.

i ran better than i had . maybe ever. i took less walk breaks. i did memory lane with the girls "there's where one of my high school boyfriend lived" "that's where i got drunk for the first time" "there's where we had almost all of our high school parties, in the dunes. ari threw most of them" "of course he did" they said.

at the turnaround, as i came back down the hill, i passed amy on her way up! she'd done almost 8 miles at that point.

there were supposed to be intermittent showers but it was clear and sunny and the ocean smelled salty and the sea lions were sunning themselves on rocks.

i put on my ipod around mile 9 and listened to my running mix for the last part of the race.

around mile 12 i started crying. not sure why. wasn't sad. wasn't in pain. i was just overwhelmed. i'd never run that far. i was doing something physically beyond anything i thought i'd ever do. it was what would have been my 7th wedding anniversary and i was running crazy far.

i had some technolike music in my ears near the finish line and i thought "NUH UH" and i switched over to Sister Christian.

fuck yea baby.

crossed the finish line running fast, to "YOU'RE MOTORING!"

and my mom and i both cried and i had this weird powdery film of salt on my forehead and my sporrts bra had little clumps of salt .. my sweat had dried into a salty film. i was an ocean creature. i have 3 spots that chafed, not enough Body Glide.

now i'm wearing a silver pendant on a silver chain. the pendant says "13.1" and it's corny . my mom gave it to me, but i feel this strange urge to never take it off.

steak and eggs for brunch. and now i'm sore and achey and i took a bath in lemonlavendermilk bath with stuff good for muscles. with candles lit and curtain closed. my answer to not making it to the spa.

and now it's over. next: 10k's only for awhile. then tri's for fun. which are shorter distance tri's

gotta buy a bike!

[ previous� �|� � next ]

�

�