With Alphaville streaming into my ears just underneath the sound of 22,000 sneaker-clad people whooping and hollering and waving their arms, we made our way down West End Avenue.  Slowly for the first mile or so - 22,000 people is a lot of traffic to negotiate.  When he hit the top of the first hill on West End and could see to the top of the second hill, the entire valley was filled, from one side to the other, with bodies in motion.  So many bodies in motion that it looked like they were standing still and I thought I might come down that valley and run smack into a wall of people standing still.  But no, they were running, and in fact they were steadily getting farther away.  No matter.  I was having a great time, and too busy concentrating on not running people over or getting run over, or getting head butted by the stupid chic in front of me who dropped her jelly beans and actually tried to stop, turn around, and pick them up.  What, do you think you're the only person on the road?  Anyway, we cruised up Music Row, where I skipped the first water stop.  I've overhydrated before, and that's a huge mistake.  Makes things very uncomfortable.  Just keep running, and it wasn't until Mile 4 that I started to see runners already coming back the other direction from the turnaround.  Wow.  Okay, so maybe I'm not the coolest person on earth.  But there was definitely some eye candy to be beholden in the form of those amazing Kenyans charging down Belmont Boulevard.  Yummy.  But then they were gone, and I had work to do.  We almost got tricked into taking dixie cups full of momosas from a couple of rednecks who were camped out in their front yard, but you could smell the alcohol coming out of that yard from a half a block away, so we were not easily fooled.  We hit the first big hill, but fortunately I knew it was a short one.  The second one, however, takes up most of Belmont Boulevard and is subtle and deadly.  I was encouraging the runners around me that this too would pass, but I think maybe I was just convincing myself.  The bands and the well-wishers were only so encouraging as we trudged up that never-ending hill, but then I saw the carrot.  Three HUGE marines, clad in matching Semper Fi t-shirts, eeking out barely more than a trot up the last 100 yards.  "Come on," I whispered to the random stranger who was wheezing his way along next to me, "Let's take out some Marines."  He looked to his left, and suddenly brightened.  "Bring it on!"  We charged to the summit, breezed past them, and high-fived.  And all of a sudden, it was downhill.  Down Belmont, down Music Row, past the gospel choir (which was very cool).  Somehow, I skipped Mile 8.  Not literally, of course (I swear I didn't cheat), but the signs seemed to go straight from 7 to 9 and I had completely lost track of steps and time for a little while.  When I realized I was at Mile 9 already, for a minute I was actually sad to think that this was almost over.  I remember that feeling vividly.  It was the moment I knew with absolute certainty that this would not be my last 1/2 marathon, that I could do this, and that I was and am a RUNNER.  Ego mixed with adrenaline and I bolted down 12th Avenue, apparently much like Icarus on his way to the sun, only in much less glamorous fashion.  As soon as we came to the bottom of the Gulch on 12th Avenue, the porta-potties came into view, and immediately my bladder felt like somebody had put a hose in it and turned it on full blast.  And if you have any familiarity with what pounding away on pavement does to your joints, imagine what it does to your bladder.  Yeah.  Had to stop, pretty much in the middle of the road, penguin my way to the parking lot, and then of course stand in line, trying not to dance around and watching in panic as hundreds and hundreds of runners breeze past.  Shit.  There goes the 2:15 pacer.  And I was ahead of her!  Finally it was my turn and I was in and out in I think under 3 seconds, partly because I was desperate to get back on the road and partly because it was a well-used porta-potty, but again I will spare the details.  I started running again, but stopping for three or four minutes is not good for the momentum.  I started to realize I was hungry, started to panic that I had missed the stop where they were handing out the sports beans.  But no, it came up about a quarter of a mile later.  I hate half the bag, dropped the rest on the ground (sorry), and felt better for about a hundred yards until my foot suddenly hurt so bad I could barely stand on it.  The gel insoles, it turned out, had been a bad idea.  They had pushed my feet up onto the top of my shoes and now the blisters were raging.  Stop again, untie and retie the shoes.  Less than three miles to go at this point, but I was really starting to wonder if I was going to finish.  The sadness about the impending finality was quickly turning to relief.  But my foot felt better, and I had jelly beans and an empty bladder in me, so I pressed on.  10th Avenue feels like its uphill forever, and I was getting tired and I thought maybe a little delirious, especially when Elvis showed up in the middle of the street to separate the mere mortal half marathoners from the marathoners who still had 15 miles to go at that point.  Bye guys, and Godspeed.  I turned right and headed through the Farmer's Market.  The sun came out, which meant it got hot, and the jelly beans turned into a cramp in my side.  No, dammit, I am not going to walk!  I am not going to - okay fine, just for a few yards.  A few yards turned into about 50, and then the old guy passed me.  He had to be 70.  Oh, no you DIDN'T!  All of a sudden the cramp was gone and I was off again, running hard and pissed off.  For the last mile and half, the old guy in the bandana (who was SINGING for Chrissake) and I sort of leapfrogged in front of and behind each other, but I'm pretty sure I finished before him.  As we headed down the Woodland Street bridge and I could see the stadium, suddenly it didn't matter any more.  This was about me, not him.  A sharp right onto to Titans Way, and suddenly I hear my name being called by two of my trainers.  They looked surprised to see me.  What, you didn't think I would finish?  What I didn't realize until I made the last turn onto Victory Lane that they weren't surprised to see me, just surprised to see me so SOON.  The clock at the finish line read 2:42 when it came into view.  There had been at least 15 minutes between when the clock started and I crossed the start line, that meant I was probably about three minutes under two and half hours, and I would be DAMNED if I was going to go over that.  Plus, if you've ever done this before you know the absolute elation of making that last turn and seeing the big sign that says FINISH.  When you first see it, it feels less like a description of a location than a command.  FINISH, dammit, and finish well.  When we turned that corner the pace in my little pack picked up to probably 7 minute miles.  We were flying.  It was only maybe 50 yards down that last stretch, and I was running faster than I ever had before in my life, but it felt like it went on forever.  I wanted to leap across the line, but I was careful to make sure I came down on the rubber mat so my chip would record my time.  And then it was done, and so was I.  The adrenaline faded, and suddenly I was thirsty, cold, and a little bit wobbly.  I got my medal and my mylar blanket and was herded through the line of thousands of other finishers covered in aluminum foil, some of them carrying beers.  Beers?  Better men than I.  I got my sandals, sat down to take off my tennis shoes and braced myself for the horror that would be what was left of my feet.  Sure enough, my socks were bright red and there was virtually nothing left of at least two of my toenails.  So much for treating myself to that pedicure.  I stumbled to my feet, finally found my husband, and when he hugged me I immediately started to cry.  He asked me if they were happy tears, and it took me a minute to decide if it was pain or joy, but I finally nodded yes.  It had to be.  Months of training, a little bit of slacking off here and there but a whole lot of dragging myself out of bed and across town when I really didn't want to so I could do lunges and crunches and run ten miles in the pouring rain and the burning sun, and here I was with a medal around my neck, Spencos on my feet and a foil blanket over my shoulders, having done the first thing in my whole life that would make it possible for me to call myself an athlete and keep a straight face.  Yeah, those were happy tears.

P.S.  Later that night I got the best text message of my life from PT.  Just as we were walking into the movie theatre with my niece and nephew, my cell phone lit up to tell me that my official race time had just been posted.  Two hours, seventeen minutes, and forty-five seconds.  Go me!!!

Some of my posts in the course of the last six months have waxed a bit philosophical, or at least soul-searching.  This one, and the ensuing parts to it, will not.  In the story of the Country Music 1/2 Marathon of April 29, 2006, there was no soul-searching and no philosophy.  Nothin' but the run.

Wake husband up from the couch at 5, almost forget my iPod (which would have brought the entire day tumbling down into disaster), and head out the door.  It's raining.  That's okay, that's okay, it will just cool us off (PLEASE STOP RAINING!!!)  The cops have already started closing off streets even though it's only 5:45 a.m., but we slowly navigate our way across the time with him breathing heavily through his nostrils letting me know how not upset he's getting and me letting him stress me out because I know the more pissed off I am the faster I'll run.  Pick up SN, one of my fave running buddies, and head off to Centennial Park where O My God there are like fifty thousand people in line for the bathrooms already!!!  So we get in the "pottie line" like our trainer told us to do, with 5 million other people (Did I say 50,000?  I meant 5 million.  Funny how the number gets bigger when you have to pee), suffer through some unbelievably obnoxious conversation from the guy in front of us about the married women who are constantly coming on to him.  We can skip the details about the "potty."  Gross.  Check the gear bag and head to the corrals.  My friend is in Corral 16 and I'm in 14, so we hug and high-five and slip in between the yellow ropes separating the corrals.  Corrals. What a word.  We feel like horses.  Now I’m by myself, except that I’m with at least a thousand other people in Corral 14 who feel exactly like I do.  I look down in breathe deep.  My God there are a lot of tennis shoes down there.  The announcer cries “GOOOOO!!!” and Corral 1 takes off.  There go the Kenyans.  After what was apparently 23 minutes (evidenced from the difference between clock time and chip time, which will be revealed later), Corral 14 had finally inched its way up to the Start Line.  I hit "Play" on the iPod, and "Big in Japan" kicks in.  Outstanding.

Except for the fact that as usual I am way short on my water intake, I've been really good today.  Long walk with the dogs this morning, peanut butter bagel, later a banana, sushi for lunch, and only two sips of coffee (so of course I can barely keep my eyes open now), and of course I'll have heaping spaghetti for dinner.  I am SO READY!!!  Ready to run!!  Ready to drag my husband out of bed at 5:30 a.m., ready to listen to him cuss and scream at all the road closures when he tries to drive me to the start line, ready for him to piss me off royally in twelve different ways before 6 a.m. so that by the time the race starts I'm so mad I run 7 minute miles all the way to the Coliseum.  Bring it on, buddy.

Let's do this thing!!

The pre-marathon Health and Fitness Expo started today, and one of my fellow runners and I headed down at the opening bell to register.  I am now checked in and chipped (i.e., supplied with a microchip to tell me how slow I run), wardrobed, massaged, psyched up and ready.  The complete and total absence of one particularly significant person in my life from all things marathon-related notwithstanding, the support of my friends and my fellow trainees has been fantastic.  I watched the other registrants today, wondering exactly how some of them were going to walk the three blocks to the start line and realizing that a lot more of them were going to leave me in their dust, but also realizing that it doesn't matter.  Running is about being me, having time to be alone and pushing the limits of everything I've ever been and ever accomplished.  Running a marathon is about being a very small part of something really really cool.

I SO CAN'T WAIT FOR SATURDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Here's a look at the past week:

Saturday (April 15) - 8.5 miles through Brentwood in the heat.  I can't even bring myself to describe it.  Think long straight streets, empty office parks, 15,000 square foot houses that look like townhouses squished together, and absolutely no shade because if you put trees in front of those houses then somebody passing by might miss 3000 square feet of it and not know how rich you are.  In case my running mates don't know because I haven't said it enough times - I HATE BRENTWOOD.

Sunday - 2 miles on the Greenway with the dogs.  (Have you seen my dogs?  It was a slow two miles).  Anyway, thank God for trees.

Monday - 4 miles with KT.  Thanks babe!

Tuesday - 60 minutes/5.8 miles on the elliptical machine. yawn.

Wednesday - 1 8:55 mile (oh YEAH, baby), 1 9:02 mile, and two very very slow hot panting miles.  8:55 was maybe a tad fast . .

Thursday - our very last strength training session.  My god, how many have we done now?  (Scarier question: how many have I missed?)  Next week - no more weight machines.  But somehow I think we'll still be doing planks . . .

Friday - a day off from everything except drinking water and eating vegetables.  Did I mention the part about consuming 100 ounces of water and ten vegetables every day?  I'll spare you the part about how much time in the bathroom that requires . . .

Saturday (today) - 5 miles that were somewhere between 9 minute and 11 minute miles depending on who you talk to.  Beautiful cool weather, and not through Brentwood.  I'll take it. 

7 more days to go.  I'll have to go back to Blog 1 and check on how many days that means I've been doing this, but it's a lot.  Not sure I've learned anything yet, but my God have I changed.  Who was that quiet chubby thing who had just quit smoking and snuck quietly into the back row at the kick-off run in November and ran/walked/stumbled a 13:33 mile and didn't talk to anybody except the fat kid in front of her?  Hmm.... don't know.  She doesn't live here anymore.

It's been a slow training week.  I worked out on Monday and ran 4.5 miles on Wednesday.  This Saturday is only 9 miles, which better be doable given that race day is in 15 DAYS, but it's through Brentwood, that Scar on God's Green Earth of long straight roads, no sidewalks, strip malls made of brick and with landscaping out front as if that somehow makes them look like something other than strip malls, and 10,000 square foot houses on .02 acres of land.  I hate it down there.  I wonder if I can run 9 miles with my eyes closed?

But Wednesday's run is the blog-worthy one this week.  I ran a new route at an ungodly hour of the morning with a man who is, face it buddy, significantly older than me and who had just as much to drink as I did the night before, but who was kicking my ass from the Sheraton to Centennial Park and back again.  I am huffing and wheezing, sounding like a 78 year old woman and smelling Tuesday night's Frangelico releasing itself from my body through my pores, and patiently trying to control himself not to take off and bolt down Church Street at his usual 6 minute mile pace.  Did I say 6 minute mile?  That's what I meant.  I was really starting to feel good about myself and my pace and then I run with a guy who is more than half again my age and says to me about our break-neck 9.5 minute/mile, "no, really it's fine.  I needed a good brisk trot this morning."  F--- off, PT.

He knows I don't mean that.  He has been an amazing inspiration, motivator, cheerleader and friend through the whole process, and I am eternally grateful.  Once I had sweated out all the alcohol and we settled into a pace that wasn't killing me and wasn't boring him to tears, there was a certain quiet peace in hearing each other's footsteps and steady breathing.  Running is deeply individual (narcisstic, maybe?), but synergy is a wonderful thing.  Thank you, PT.

Alright, Tblog kids.  Somebody over here better do something quick to make this site a whole lot cooler than it is right now, 'cause myspace is kicking some ass.  I'm a thirty year old attorney with absolutely no time to be screwing around on the internet and I am TOTALLY addicted to myspace.  For starters, people over there actually COMMENT to each other.  Hello?!?!?!

Anyway, the good news is that the ankle has apparently healed, since it didn't collapse underneath me during my three mile run today.  Figured I better try, since I've got to do 11 on Saturday (which sounds like a lot, although it turns out that's actually what we did last week, despite some people thinking they know how to use the gmap-pedometer site . . .).  And it was successful, except that we're getting dangerously close to that part of the year in Nashville known as HOT.  And also HUMID.  Need to up the water intake.  I should probably put down this glass of wine and hydrate instead, but what the hell . . . .

I can't take credit for this one, but I'm posting this e-mail we just got from our fabulous trainer Michelle just in case any marathoners in training stumble across this site looking for inspiration:

26 days till Race Day and counting.  And this morning I stumble upstairs to go grab my suit jacket, step on a #&$@#@#!!!  VCR that is sitting in the middle of the attic floor, almost land on my face, and hear my left ankle go "POP!"  Oh, no.  This is NOT happening to me.  I haven't injured myself in any way shape or form in YEARS and today I sprain my ankle?!?!?  But yes, it is happening because it FUCKING HURTS!!!!  So I'm sitting here at work with my shoe and sock off and my ankle propped up on a chair and a turned over trash can, with a pound of ice sitting on top of it. 

This is NOT HAPPENING!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wednesday night was a beautiful night.  There was a light breeze that made me just a little bit chilly in the tank top I was wearing to run in, but made it perfectly comfortable after about a half a mile.  I had my choice on Wednesday - run with one of my "halfer" friends, who is an amazing inspiration but also sometimes makes it easy to take breaks and shortcuts when we probably shouldn't, or run with the hard cores.  "It's only 4.6 miles," I thought.  (ONLY 4.6 miles?!!?  Exactly when in the last five months did it seem logical to me to pair the word "only" with that kind of distance when I'm talking about travelling it by foot?!?!?).  "Let's try and keep up."  So off I went with Ashley, who is usually the girl who zips past me after the first mile or so and whose bouncing ponytail I can see for about ten more seconds before she disappears into the next county.  I got through the first mile with her, and the second.  Wow.  Halfway through the third mile, we had to stop going uphill, and every muscle from my hips to neck turned into one giant ball of pain and agony.  So I stopped, walked, and stretched, and of course by the time I looked up she was gone.  I could have stopped, or at least started jogging, but off I went at the same pace, and before long she was within sight and I was passing the people who had smoked us at the starting line and then burned themselves out before the end of mile 3.  Long story short, after a 3-minute last half mile of pure adrenaline and ecstacy, I finished my 4.6 miles in my fastest EVER time (which I'm not going to reveal because it would be embarassing if any actual runners ever stumbled across this page).  I felt like a squillion bucks. Awesome.

Then came Saturday.  Even more beautiful than Wednesday - about 60 degrees at the start, beautiful sun, light breeze.  We took off from the Downtown Y and headed towards perhaps not the prettiest part of town, but I was with my friends and we were cruising.  Sometime after the first water stop, I left everyone behind.  I love chatting, or listening to chatting happening, but at some point usually the pace takes over and it's just me and my iPod.  I try to reach that trance stage that runners talk about.  Usually I just end up thinking too much, but on Saturday I must have reached it because the next thing I know after a very long, flat, shadeless torturous stretch I come up on the lead group of runners taking off down a random very steep hill with no sidewalk.  Apparently we had long since missed our turn off the greenway, and had no idea where we were.  We found our way back to Metrocenter Boulevard, and started the long slow climb up the hill.  I kept up for about 100 yards, but the distance between me and the people who actually have any business running a marathon got pretty great pretty fast.  Still shadeless, now hot, blaring traffic, and uphill.  I made it up the hill.  Yay me.  I trotted across to the waterstop in time to have the last two girls tell me to shut the trunk when I was done, and I was all by myself again.  Hot, tired, frustrated, and humiliated.  What the hell am I doing?  It's only an 8 mile day and I can't make it without crying.  Thinking I could go from Jabba the Hut to FloJo in six months?  Am I insane?  I considered just waiting by the truck until someone came back to drive me home.  But no, I kept going.  Past the projects, past the rundown KFC and the Kroger, through the bus stop, a little girl all by herself with absolutely no hope of outrunning anyone who felt like messing with me out there, convinced that by the time I pounded my way back to the Y everyone else would be long gone.  But I kept pounding.  My feet hurt, there is sweat in my eyes, I'm getting that really weird pain in my wrist again, but I kept going, and when I finally did make it back?  Everyone's still there!  I finished absolutely dead last, but only behind the fastest runners and only because we had added an extra mile and a half on to the course just from getting lost.  Wednesday was a big fish in a little pond day.  Saturday, it was the fish that was little.  And I think that's okay, because on race day, that's going to be one big fucking pond.

This is what I looked like after about 4.5 miles on Saturday:

That happy little smile on my face actually lasted until about Mile 8.  Today is a happy post-day, so I'm just going to skip the whole part about how I didn't look at all like that for the last 2 and a half miles.  I'm also going to let Olivia describe the route, (check out oliviasmarathonmisadventu res.blogspot.com), because she's so much better at that than I am, even though that bad-ass did 18 miles while us mere mortals pounded out only 10.5.  But 10.5 miles! After the debauchery of South by Southwest (much of which does not belong in print), after the weeks of being in D.C., L.A., back to D.C., Wisconsin, and Austin, after hours upon hours of document review and filling up the leftover hours with entirely too much beer, to get out and run, and BE ABLE to run 10.5 miles was quite a victory.   Saturday renewed my confidence and brought me back to a focused, hapy and endorphin-laden place that I had forgotten about throughout part of February and most of March.  I remember why I'm doing this now.  I remember that I'm doing it. 

5 more miles tomorrow!

Skipped training this morning.  Whatever.  I'll do some push-ups and run a couple miles tonight.  Totally over it, totally exhausted.  I'm up to my eyeballs in doucment review (do not, I repeat DO NOT become a lawyer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) , still haven't slept enough since South by, and if it doesn't stop being SO FUCKING COLD IN NASHVILLE ON THE THIRD FUCKING DAY OF SPRING I'm going to shoot somebody and then move the equator.

Unbelievable.  I've got less than five weeks to go before the Country Music Marathon.  I very regrettably have to report that because of my recent transcontinental adventures, all of which have taken place over weekends where the training group was doing long runs, I have simply missed too many miles to safely attempt to run a marathon in five weeks.  My longest run still stands at 12, while everyone else is up to 18.  Marathons are never in short supply, and there will be another one next year, at which point I will most likely grace this cyberspace once again with excruiciating training details.  And you will most certainly hear about my run this weekend, but at least it will only be mile-by-mile for ten miles instead of twenty.

Onward still to April 29, 2006, and even more onward to same time next year!!

O my god.  I'm supposed to do 16 miles on Saturday?!?!?  Starting to get nervous here.  I skipped training this morning.  Went to bed early, but the dogs were up all night, so pretty much so was I.  Plus, I was maybe still nursing the hangover from the sheer debauchery that was Saturday night.  Good times had by all, and thanks much to my date for the evening for protecting me from the lesbians at the Lipstick Lounge. (And that's where the details stop). 

So I HAVE to go the gym tonight, HAVE to run every day this week, and HAVE to hope like hell that it it's not storming on Saturday morning so I don't have to do 16 miles on a treadmill.  Ick.

I'm starting to fade out of training a little bit, and starting to forget what all this is for.  It's high time to get back on track.  See you all on Thursday!

Attempted to go running in the Hollywood Hills on Sunday.  Two problems with that theory.  One, L.A. is basically desert.  It gets hot there.  Two, the "hills" are set at a ninety degree angle from any horizontal surface.  You can't even walk up them flat-footed, much less run, and running down those suckers would be the end of your knees forever.  So I didn't go anywhere close to the 14 miles I was supposed to.  Maybe eight miles, but four of them were STRAIGHT up hill, so my gluts hurt like hell today.  I better figure out a way to do 14 this week.   And congrats to Olivia and Rachel and Kat and all the girls with the GH YMCA who pulled it off on Saturday.  YOU GO!!!

And if you are anywhere in the L.A. area, or even if you aren't, go see "The Lion in Winter" at Theatre West at 3333 Cahuenga Blvd. West in Hollwood, running Thursday - Sunday between now and April 1.  The cast is phenomenal, Bridget Hanley is absolutely without equal, and any script that includes the line "He came down from the north to Paris, with a mind like Aristotle's and a form like mortal sin. We shattered the commandments on the spot," is a play that anyone with a pulse needs to see.  Check it out at www.theatrewest.org.

This week has been tough.  I pulled a hamstring during the run in the snow and the wind last Saturday, as if running in the snow and the wind wasn't bad enough.  (This was NOT big fat peaceful quiet pretty Alexandria Virginia snow.  This was hard small wet cut your face into tiny pieces Nashville Tennesse snow).  Didn't realize the injury until Sunday when I turned the treadmill up to 6.0 and almost fell off because I couldn't lift my left leg higher than to my right ankle bone.  So I walked three miles on the treadmill, bored and pissed off.  I missed training on Monday, walked three more miles on Tuesday, and blew off Wednesday.  I had a cold all week, a zit that won't go away, and I almost got run over on the street TWICE yesterday.  But sometimes it's hard to tell if you're pissed off because bad things are happening or if bad things are happening because you're pissed off.  This week I think it's been way more of the latter, although it would help considerably if people would stop making left hand turns into pedestrian traffic while looking in the rearview mirror trying to put on lipstick. 

But really, it's been all me.  I'm the one who's mad, and I'm mad at myself.  How the hell did it end up like this, when I knew all along that it eventually would?  Is it ever going to stop, and would I even be me anymore if it did?  Am I just dragging it out and making it worse or am I finally taking the first steps towards doing what I'm supposed to be doing after almost fifteen years of not doing it?

Then I went to training this morning and did twelve push-ups in a row, and I remembered I have something to be proud of too!

So far, running in the cold has been much better than what I assume running in the heat must be.  I guess I'll find out next week in L.A.  Anyway, that was true at least until this morning, when I did 8.35 miles in 28 degree weather with wind and snow coming directly into my face for half of the run.   Cold, wet, and icky.  I have consumed approximately nine thousand calories today to make up for it (otherwise known as Eating Lunch at The Cheesecake Factory), and my hip flexers are going to leave me.  They are just going to separate themselves from my joints and depart my body, because they are no longer able to tolerate the abuse.  They have loved me my whole life and they just don't understand why I'm treating them this way.  They just can't take it anymore.  This is the speech they have given me today every time I have attempted to walk up a flight of stairs.

But despite the pleas from every movable muscle in my body, I have reset my goal to run every day.  Maybe only three miles, but every day nonetheless.  April 29th is only getting closer!

Saturday night, the snow fell.  It fell for hours.  It fell through lightning.  It fell throughout the simple wedding ceremony, with three walls of windows, where we could see the snow encrust the pine trees and pile layer upon layer on the bushes. 

On Sunday, in Old Town Alexandria, on the Mount Vernon Trail running parallel to the Potomac River and with a clear view of the Washington Monument and the U.S. Capitol building, I ran.  I have no idea how far.  I don't think it was the twelve miles I was supposed to run, but it could have been a hundred.  Kind souls had cleared the trail in most places in the morning, so there was one clear brown path running down the middle of foot-high banks of snow on either side.  I shared the waterfront park with cross-country skiiers, babies on sleds, and dogs playing in the snow, but all was quiet in that way that thirteen inches of snow silences everything.  I ran through the park, across covered bridges jutting out over the Potomac, under trees bowed together under the weight of the snow.  I ran in the silence with the peacefulness at the end of the storm winning out over the mild chaos inside of me as I tried to organize the events and non-events of the previous seventy-two hours into their proper place in the matrix of what, for better or worse and through a hazy combination of conscious decisions and circumstances beyond my control, has become my life.  Miles in, it became not about training, not about exercising either my body or the demons, but about the beauty and the quiet and the run.  One footprint in front of the last, again and again, left in the snow to let myself, the world, and those who came behind me know that I am here.

After a fantastical weekend, I guess it's time to get back in gear.  I am so far behind!  Didn't run 12 miles on Saturday, missed the pool jog, missed training on Monday.  Training this morning was pathetic - see previous post re: exercise balls, tone it down slightly and replace the word "exercise" with "medicine," and you will know how I felt this morning.  Ever get hit in the head with a medicine ball at 5:55 a.m.?  Yeah.

The half-marathon is starting to look more and more appealing every day.  Somebody kick-start me, PLEASE!!!!

I didn't train on Saturday, but what an amazing day.  The people surrounding me in this picture are my oldest friends and the most important people in the world to me.  I love each of them beyond words, and don't see them nearly enough.  Mazel Tov, Ethan!  Break a leg, BD!  Elizabeth, I couldn't love you any more if you were my twin!

This morning, at approximately 5:46 a.m., I walked into the gym at the Green Hills YMCA.  I was about a minute late, so everyone else was already contorted into position to begin the torture drills inflicted upon us by our trainer.  Usually, when I walk in, they are doing clams, or leg raises, or some variation of a sit-up (read:  I am ALWAYS late), but this morning, they had out the EXERCISE BALLS.

 I very nearly turned around and left.

 In my more than twenty years on this planet, I have come across places(Knoxville, Tennesse) people(stupid ones), and things(Pontiac Aztecs) that I hate.  Some of them, not necessarily mentioned in the previous list, have elicited levels of hatred in me that I was convinced could never be topped.  That was all before I encountered the exercise ball.

 They are big, they are squishy, they are red, and, as balls have been historically prone to do, they roll.  They especially like to roll when one is attempting to balance on the surface of one of these things by one's ANKLES (don't try this at home).  They roll out from under your feet, and your face hits the ground nose first.  Which is somewhat lacking in grace, but nearly in such a spectacular manner as when the giant red ball shoots out from your ass when you are trying to lie on top of it and do sit-ups with one leg in the air.  I can't even dribble the damn things.  You would think that dribbling would be rendered somewhat easier when the object to be dribbled is approximately the size of Rhode Island, but if you tried it, and you were me, what you would discover is that its size simply makes it easier to accidentally KICK out from underneath your hands, causing it to bounce across the room and into the legs of at least four other people, resulting in your ducking through legs and other bouncing exercise balls to attempt to CATCH your own ball, a feat rendered impossible by the size, bounciness, and lack of handles on exercise balls.

 When we finish this training, I am going straight back to the Green Hils YMCA and I am going to POP every single f&*!-ing one of those f&*!-ing balls.  So help me God.

I could have gotten up this morning.  It's not like I was sick, or even that tired.  The Super Bowl was over by 9, and I went to bed right after.  Of course, the dogs decided to get up in the middle of the night, and my husband has an amazing capacity to sleep through the dogs clicking down the hardwood floors and jumping up on the bed but gets annoyed when I shake the bed while getting back in it after standing out in the freezing fucking cold with our four-legged brats for ten minutes at midnight.  (If you sense bitterness, give yourself five points for your powers of observation).

But still, I could have gotten up.  I could have gone to training, done four thousand sit ups and a hundred and twelve push-ups and lifted weights the size of Volkswagen Bugs this morning.  I've done it before.  But this morning I just didn't.  I laid in bed wide awake at 5:15 with plenty of time to get dressed and get to the Y, and then I continued to lay there until 6:10.  Too late now.  I wonder why?  Now would be a hell of a time to lose my motivation.  I have to run 12 miles on Saturday!  And that's not even halfway through a marathon, and we've only got 11 weeks to go! 

Feeling doubtful today.  Chalk it up to being Monday and being February, I guess.

Know why there are only 28 days in February?  'Cause the other three killed themselves.

10 miles.  That's how many we did on Saturday.  Good god.  That's even farther than it is from the gym on the west side of Nashville to my house on the east side.  And amazingly, I managed to look happy (or possibly delirious), even at mile 7.  See?

In case you're wondering, I'm the retarded-looking one in the kermit-green jacket.   Which it turns out has a navy blue stripe down the side, while of course all my pants are black.  But no one seems to have noticed yet.

By the way, if anyone is looking for a blog about marathoning that's actually good, check out http://oliviasmarathonmis adventures.blogspot.com" title="http://oliviasmarathonmis adventures.blogspot.com" target="_blank"http://oliviasmarathonmis adve....  Olivia likes to talk about things like our route, the company, the hard miles, the inspiration, etc.  Me?  Obviously, I like to talk about me.  MY marathon training, MY blog, MY treadmill that the fat people need to get off of. ME.  And Olivia's site talks about me, too, sort of, so check it out.