Daily Doubles

Tomorrow is my last long run day before Surf City.  Can I hear a big HOORAY?!?  Seriously, so so glad about that. 

I registered to run the Cascade Half Marathon long before I knew I would need to run 22 miles tomorrow, so I'm going to run the Half at 8:00 a.m. and then another 8 miles at 2:00 with Julie.  Strangely, I'm not too stressed about it.   The 13 miles won't be easy, but it won't kill me either.  I've packed a whole extra running outfit to change to as soon as the race is over, along with a towel because the forecast calls for wet, wet, wet.  So I'll run the 13, change, eat, and then have a little rest time before I meet Julie for a slow, easy 8 miles through town.  I tend to tighten up pretty fast after long runs, so I'm going to cross the 8 bridge when I get to it.  One run at a time.

Looking forward to seeing friends tomorrow ~ Annette, Connie, Debbie, Blanca, Tricia and Jason.  Not sure if anyone else will be there?  Should be a fun morning. 

Bits and Pieces

The countdown is officially on ~ less than a month till Surf City.  Every time I think about that my stomach flips over.  I've been doing short runs and a short long run (7 miles), icing my sore leg and working on the mental prep. 

The holiday eating frenzy was managed decently, I guess.  I had a few bad days in there, but overall did better than I have in years past.  My birthday (the big 4-0) just passed, too, and I have probably eaten quite a bit more cake this week than I needed to eat.  haha.  It was all good, but when I rolled out for a short 3 miler the morning after my party I felt like a giant slug rolling down the road.  Maybe time to lay off the cake and pull myself together again. 

My goals for this week are to run a litttle, rest a lot and get my eating in line.  I'm running the Cascade Half Marathon on Sunday morning, then coming home to meet Julie for 8 more miles, so I really need to have my act together. 

20 Miles on New Years Eve

That's certainly not something I ever expected to type or to accomplish.  I ran 20 miles on Thursday... roll that around on your tongue... feels pretty good.

Julie and I planned our 20 for 7:00 a.m. on New Years Eve.  We never run that early, but we were both feeling the strong desire to Get. It. Over. With.  So 7:00 it was. 

The day before the run, Wednesday, I tried to eat meticulously.  I was oh-so-careful and drank water like a fish, to boot.  Drove the route ahead of time to get a good look at it and hid a 32 oz bottle of Powerade for Julie and one for me under a bush somewhere along the return.  It was a bit muddy getting to the bush and I sort of stood back and tossed them under, calling it good.  

A storm front was expected to roll in overnight on Wednesday bringing heavy rain and wind, so after assembling my collection of goods I went to bed hoping the weatherman would be wrong again.   Nope.  How many times this winter has he completely missed the mark?  Too many to count!  But this one time I needed him to be wrong, he was right.  It was pouring.  And dark.  Apparently it is at 7, but I wouldn't know since I try hard not to get up that early.

I got up at 5 to give myself time to wake up and eat some breakfast.  Ultimately I dressed in long pants, long sleeves, my rain jacket, an ear wrap, a visor to keep the rain out of my eyes and for good geeky measure added a Dollar Store poncho over the top.  Oh, and my fuel belt with 40 ounces of Powerade.  And snacks stuffed in my pockets.  Can't forget those.  Basically, I was a walking Army Tank, ready to roll.  Oh, wait!  Can't forget the blinking yellow safety strap on the front of my fuel belt and the glo stick dangling off the back, slapping me in the behind with every step.  I really am the coolest person I know. 

Our 7:00 start was very, very wet and very, very dark.  There was some leftover slush on the ground from the little snow we had earlier in the week, so we had a slow start.  We made our way off into the darkness, no turning back.  Our route took us up and down all the side roads along the way to Monmouth, out to the highway and back several times.  The first half went well.  Our Cool Girl Ponchos kept us relatively dry and we ran along slowly sipping our blue Powerade and munching on our never ending supply of Peach Tea Sharkies.  We ran in the back road to Western Oregon University for the first time ever, and up through campus.  By that point we probably 8 miles in and looking for a bathroom.  We found a blessedly warm one in the Student Center on campus, where we tracked a whole lot of water into the building and took a quick stop.  Back on the road, we continued through campus, past Main Street and into the neighborhoods behind.  We eventually made our way back to the Burgerville intersection where we wisely decided one more pit stop before leaving town was a good idea.  I shot off a quick "I'm alive" text, felt slightly bad about forcing the clerk to mop up our rivers of rain after we left, and back out we went to face the second half.

Our first stop on the way home was to dig our extra Powerade out of the bush I had tossed it under the day before.  Two things had changed, however.  The first was that the slight mud of the day before had become the Wow mud of today, so I hopped from clump of grass to clump of grass.  The second was that I had failed to realize that tossing bottles on Wednesday would require crawling under to get them on Thursday.  That would've been okay if I'd chosen a hydrangea bush, but no ~ I chose some sort of thorny bush, a fact I didn't notice while tossing from a distance.  It all worked out... we definitely needed the Powerade refill by that point, and on we ran.

Did I mention it was raining?  And pouring?  It never let up, not even once.  I would reach up to adjust the bill of my visor and water would roll in a river down the inside of my sleeve, right through my armpit and down my side.  If one of us would lean forward, water would pour off our ponchos.  The ponchos worked well to keep us dry for a few miles, but after that the water was just too much for them.  It wicked up from our legs and ran down our necks and poured off our hats.  We were soaked all the way through.  There really wasn't anywhere to ditch the ponchos and they were lightweight, so we just left them on. 

I never hit the wall on this run.  I did start to tire around mile 16, but I never felt like I couldn't make it.  Mentally I stayed strong and physically I did pretty well.  We saved our Gu power bursts to take at about 17 miles, which seemed to work well.  We had one last startling moment when we discovered both of us had fingers swollen up like sausages around mile 18.  Kind of scared both of us, so we worked on keeping our hands up a bit to help with blood flow.   We worked our way back to town and slowly made our way back to The Pill Box.  There was such an amazing feeling of relief and accomplishment... we shared a big, wet hug, walked around the block to cool down, I munched on a Clif Bar and we headed home.  20 miles.  20 FREAKING miles. 

That night I was in quite a bit of discomfort... felt like I'd been slammed between two cars, actually.  The next day was a bit better and the day after better yet.  20 miles feels really huge in my head.  I feel like even if I were never able to run a marathon I would feel like I had reached a huge milestone of accomplishment with this run.  Running it without hitting the wall was huge, too.

I am so incredibly relieved to not have to do that again unless I want to.