the ugly truth

weekend long run:  20 miles
on the iPod:  "funny the way it is" -- the DMB

Unless one is born on the eastern side of Africa, say in a country like Kenya or Ethiopia, distance running can turn pretty ugly when the mileage starts to mirror the legal age for voting, gambling, or buying frozen hurricanes in the French Quarter.  That's not to say that running upwards of 18 miles isn't enjoyable, but rather acknowledging the fact that it sometimes gets a little bit dicey.  In preparation for the pummeling that my poor body is bound to take, I try to make sure i'm well-hydrated, getting ample asleep, and am consuming enough protein to choke a giraffe.  All of this is done with a smile on my face and an eagerness comparable to a cop in a donut shop, but I still know that it's going to hurt.  It's the ugly truth.  With five weeks to go before the New York City Marathon, the time has come for logging some really large distances and I couldn't be happier about it.  These are the days that I absolutely love.  

Running 20 miles in one morning takes considerable planning, which is not my strong suit.  I'm better suited for coffee consumption, driving annoyingly slow on the interstate, watching really bad reality television, snacking, and witty repartee.  But for some bizarre reason, I think I might have been feeling industrious, I offered to plan the route.  Through an exchange of mid-week text message with my best good running friend Mrs. Murie, it turned in to a total calamity, as we went back and forth about said route, trying to discern the best way to accomplish the following:  get in some hill work (her request), see people along the trail (my request), not doing too many spurs (her request), and run past Razorback Stadium (my request.)  I'm still not for sure if we ever knew exactly where we were going, but both of us seemed excited to give it a go.  Leaving out right as the sun was coming up, Mrs. Murie admitted that she had been out for a night on the town with the strapping, dapper Mr. Murie and might be feeling the effects of the evening.  We've all been there before.  That's the truth.

Nonetheless, the run couldn't have been more enjoyable, which might have been a direct result of not pushing the pace all that much and taking frequent water breaks in an effort to stay hydrated.  The cooler temperature in the air helped as well, despite a stubborn humidity that refused to let up.  In a nod to the Arkansas Razorbacks opening their conference season at home against Little Johnny Football and the rest of the Texas A+M Aggies, we added a loop around the stadium that not only allowed us to soak in the tailgating atmosphere that was already hopping at 8:30 in the morning, but also get in some considerable hill work on Stadium Drive, which was lined some 200 students deep waiting to get in after camping overnight.  Judging from a quick run past that motley crew, i'm thinking that some of them may have been suffering from the same fate of a late night like Mrs. Murie.  She was a trooper, though, and of course she finished well ahead of me anyway.  I digress.  

We were both relatively famished after a great run, so we shared a big, greasy sausage biscuit on the patio of Starbucks and talked to football fans dressed in both Razorback red and Aggie maroon.  We also compared blisters, with Mrs. Murie coming out slightly on top.  She later sent me a picture of hers, claiming that it looked a little bit like a duck.  I suggested she submit the picture to the Little Rock Zoo for further analysis.  It's pretty ugly.

The rest of the weekend was spent doing absolutely as little as possible, but I did manage to watch great football with friends, including Heather, who will be running the New York City Marathon as well.  We had pizza and wings and beer, and lots of good laughs while yelling at the television.  In her excitement, she even threw a used napkin at me, which I didn't necessarily appreciate.   Neither of our respective teams won, but sometimes that's how it goes in the SEC.  I rooted for LSU to beat Georgia and she rooted for Arkansas to beat Texas A+M,  but i'm not exactly what we'll do when the two teams face off at the end of the season.  

The fact that i'm running my seventh marathon in little more than a month is starting to sink in, which makes me really happy.  I haven't yet fully comprehended that it's going to be in the greatest city in the world, but I know that I will soon.  There are three more long runs scheduled and one of my favorite races of the entire year is next weekend, so to say that things are going well would be an understatement.  When I slow down enough to really think about it, I realize just exactly how blessed I am to be able to run.  It has changed my life in countless ways, none of which I would ever second guess for a single minute.  It seems like yesterday that I took my very first run about three quarters of the way down my street, unable to make it to the end, and then turning around only to walk back.  That run was a hot mess, but even then there was something that sparked and made me want to do it again.  I'm so glad that I did.

Run.