the open corral

weekend long run:  15 miles
on the iPod:  "beauty and a beat"  -- justin bieber

The Little Rock Marathon is six weeks away and my self-proclaimed tour of ill-preparedness marches forward with reckless abandon.  Because finish times have never been my concern, i'm cool with going into this one less than fully trained.  From Day One it's been about the love of running and the experience of the race for me.  I'm just not a "Corral A" kinda guy.  I wouldn't know what to do up there, what with all the worrying about hitting paces and BQ's, tangents and negative splits, all the jockeying for space and trying to mentally psych each other out.  I don't have time for all that pretension and superiority crap -- it sounds like a good way to develop an ulcer.  I know a few front runners who are completely cool people, like really cool, but the majority of them wouldn't hand me a glass of water in the desert.  I'll stick with the Open Corralers.  Those are my people. 

Amidst all of the haphazardness of training, my runs have been outstanding and i've enjoyed every one of them.  And yesterday was especially nice as Mrs. Murie returned from a long hiatus over the holiday season to join me.  We haven't really run together since October, save for a few short trails spread throughout November and December.  I was happier than a slinky on an escalator to have her around again.  She, too, has completely disregarded any sort of formal training for Little Rock.  And while she tends to have some sort of concern regarding times and finishes, I think she's willing to go out and just have fun for 26.2 miles in our state's capital city.

We set out from Panera and almost instantaneously settled into a slow pace as we caught up on our respective lives outside of running.  The trails seemed to be light in terms of traffic considering that the morning was really nice for cardiovascular activities.  We saw a few friends along the way:  Sarah Martin Hood, who's training for Cowtown in a few weeks;  Bruce Wilkins, who isn't training for anything but should be; Cameron Magness, who always makes me smile because she runs in Jackie O's; and Bret Ellington, an old school fraternity brother who was out riding bikes with his son.  Fayetteville has some of the greatest people on the planet, and i'm so blessed to have lived here as long as I have, meeting amazing people along the way that have changed my life for the better.  I hope that i've changed theirs as well.  

Both Mrs. Murie and I agreed that our legs weren't prepared for a 15-miler, yet we essentially ran the entire morning, save for a quick walk break around mile seven.  As always, she came up with the route we would run to get the correct mileage, because i'm too lazy to do it.  What she failed to do was mention that said route included a mile around Wilson Park, with its nasty incline.  Yep, right before it was time to keep heading south at the beginning of mile eight, she nonchalantly mentioned, as if on a whim, that we needed to take a right turn and make a loop around the park.  I feigned frustration with her and managed to throw a tantrum, but I think she knew I didn't care one single bit about running the park.  I'd run anywhere in the world with her, hills or no hills.  I love running that much.

Well-documented in this blog over the years is the fact that when Mrs. Murie and I train together, we usually don't actually run the majority of the miles together.  After about an hour, she tends to pull away a little bit, maybe 30 or 40 yards ahead of me, and we continue to run.    I'm completely fine with the arrangement, because solo distance running allows me to experience the sport on a spiritual level.  I become lost in my thoughts, my breathing, my strides.  But for whatever reason, I suspect she was a little bit out of habit, Mrs. Murie and I ran stride for stride pretty much the entire distance and I really liked it.  We've become such great friends through running, and I can't decide which is the byproduct of which.  It doesn't matter, I suppose, because in running with her i've found my focus and passion.  I've found what I'm supposed to do and she's played a huge role in my journey.

Fifteen miles left my legs hurting substantially, and upon finishing we both agreed that the soreness felt really good.  I had a glass of chocolate milk, which sounds like it would be disgusting after running for three hours, but is extremely common at marathons as a post-race fluid because of its perfect combination of carbs and protein.  I rarely drink chocolate milk, but yesterday I thought it might help my thighs stop feeling like they were about to secede from my legs and move to the beach.  The other common liquid at finish lines is beer.  I usually have both, unless the milk is gone from all the damn front runners.  That just leaves more beer for the oafs like me bringing up the back of the pack.  Yep, I was born to run in the open corral, which fits in just perfect for how i've trained.  Maybe for one of these races i'll try to run like a Kenyan, but most likely I'll just be happy to be doing what I love so very much.  I'd rather have a beer than chocolate milk, anyway.

Run.