18 miles of suckage
Well, the title is not exactly accurate, where the first 9-10 miles were actually quite pleasant. The last eight sucked, though. Here is a recap, in bullet form:
- Animal friends: two different families of deer (one mama, two babies in each), one giant possum
- Animal enemies: mosquitoes kept landing on the same part of my arm, also got me in the back
- Temperature change from start of run to end of run: 50 degrees (okay, it was only about 12, but it felt like 50!)
- Trees (or large branches) down, fully blocking the path, resulting in fancy maneuvering: 6
- Number of teammates seen who also did not want to drive into the city for training: 4
- Times I stopped to change socks: 1 (my fancy toe socks have a devil seam causing my blisters!)
- Times I forgot to restart timer after climbing over downed trees: 1
- Times I wanted to quit: 4
- Times I called the husband to whine: 1
- Times I started to tear up: 3
- Miles ran: 18
- Time of completion: way too freakin’ long
- Part of the body that hurt: feet, toes, bunions, hip, knee, head
Here is a photo that I took halfway through the run (when I changed the devil socks). The mud was much more widespread after the run, but I was too pooped to take a picture then.
The way to look at it is that–you did 18. Mark it down. Save the memory for later. When you’re running the marathon and you need a pick me up, think of this crappy 18 mile run. You never know, but I doubt that the marathon will require you to climb over/navigate around down trees, avoid deer, possums and mosquitos. If you could do all that and make it 18 miles, the marathon is cake.
Comment by ShoreTurtle — August 28, 2007 @ 12:32 pm
WOW, that looks like quite a run! I don’t know what it is about 18, but it never goes right. 20, fine, 22, okay, 26.2, perfect….18? Something always happens.
What an awesome experience it sounds like!
Comment by Laura Lohr : My Beautiful Life — August 31, 2007 @ 3:59 pm
Good luck with the 10 mile race!
Comment by ShoreTurtle — September 2, 2007 @ 6:27 pm