Last Place Runner

The half marathon is creeping up on me. I’m going to hate not having my group to run with on Saturdays, but I may also kind of like not getting up at 5:30 in the morning 6 days a week.

Yesterday’s training run was 9 miles. That’s what I was mentally prepared for. We did 8 a couple of weeks ago and last week was a cut-back week, so we did 6 miles (4.97 of which was our Valentine 8K).

Yesterday was hot, too. I took my Camelbak Charm with me, although I kind of waffled about it. I decided I’d rather have it, even if it bugged me, than to run 9 miles in the sun and 70-degree heat without it.

The Charm holds about 1.5L of water and doesn’t weigh a thing. So the only thing I don’t like about it is the sloshing sound it makes, but nobody else can ever hear it. I was also loaded down with my phone and my fuel. I’d put on sunscreen, pulled my hair back, put on a headband, and had my sunglasses on top of my head. I was never so glad that we keep our keys at the community center. I was out of pockets and pouches and hiding places to carry stuff.

I didn’t sleep well Friday night because I was worried about it being so warm while I was running. And then I was frustrated that I wasn’t sleeping because I was going to run anyway and it would be warm anyway and I’d just be sleepy because all my worrying couldn’t change anything.

The first mile always kind of sucks, but usually I’m pretty happy by mile 3. I was running with my friend Michael and got to tell him we’d just run a 5k! Haha, only about 6 more miles to go now!

I felt good until about mile 7.25. Then it was just hot and I was tired and hungry, despite the two GUs I’d had by then. I told myself just to power through, it was just a little ways more and there was no sense in quitting.

I met a new friend along the way, too, and she ran with me and Michael from about mile 4. Coach had just said that morning that he can’t believe all the chatter on our Facebook group about how we are all just now getting to know each other. “It’s NINE MILES!” he said. “You got time!”

So we were all plugging along, seven miles, eight miles, eight point five … And we were like nowhere near finished, even though we were on the course that was planned for yesterday. It was hot, a GU had leaked in my bra (if you don’t have any experience with GU, you can’t even begin to understand my misery), every part of me was sweat and grime. You seriously could’ve salted the rim of your margarita glass on my face. And as I saw my watch clock that 9th mile, I knew I was at least 8/10ths of a mile from my car.

It may not seem like a lot until it does seem like a lot. Of course I know that if I can run 8 miles, I can surely run 10 miles. And I think if Coach had said the course was going to be longer, I might’ve been able to deal with it more gracefully than I did.

I shut down my watch at 9.53 miles because I was moving too slowly to care about documenting it.

I had 25,000 steps by the time I got back to the community center, and still a whole day of living life ahead of me. I got some water, did my leg drains and picked up my official training group shirt.

A little while later, my friend B. came in from her run. I saw her come out of the locker room after a while and she was crying. There were a lot of emotional runners yesterday — we ran 10 freaking miles. We went right on to the double digits. Each one of us can go out now — right now — and run the full 13.1. Who knew?

Honestly, I knew I’d give it my best shot, but I couldn’t see myself ever running more than 2-3 miles without stopping. But somehow it just happens. I just did it. And everyone in my group, all 300+ of us, just did it.

Next Saturday is our 10-mile run, but Coach already made a comment about eating our Wheaties next week. What diabolical plan awaits us next week?