Are We Having Fun Yet?

No.

I ran 10 miles yesterday.  It was a beautiful day, perfect running weather, but it still sucked.  Really, wasn't pleasurable in the least.  I earned one brief runner's high, but it wasn't intense or long-lasting enough to make the other 9.7 miles worth it.  Maybe it has to do with how accelerated my training regime has been, I know I'm forcing it, or maybe 10k is my optimum distance, but I'm still regretting have signed up for this thing.  Just really want it to be over at this point.  And my times haven't been anything to brag about either.

You know what got me through it?  Have you seen 127 Hours yet?  I have.  If you live in a cave or Egypt then the following my be a spoiler for you so considered yourself warned.

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The dude cuts his arm off.  With a small multipurpose tool.  Using his non-dominant hand.  After 5 days stuck in a ravine with almost no food or water.  And THEN he hikes out of the canyon, even rappelling at points.  And THEN he climbs on to a rescue chopper of his own volition.  At least that's what happens in the movie.  I haven't read his book, a true story, but I hear the movie is faithful.

So whenever I started feeling sorry for myself while running I would repeat over and over in my head, "dude cut his arm off, dude cut his arm off, dude cut his arm off and then hiked out of a canyon."  It wasn't necessarily an empowering mantra, but it would shame me into not stopping..  I mean, the dude cut his arm off.  His own arm.  I think I can suck it up and run a few miles.

I did see one interesting thing during my 90minutes of running (told you my times suck); a man scolding a screaming parrot.  He was walking along a popular local path with the parrot sitting on his hand and it was screaming obnoxiously and he was yelling back at it, "no!  No!  You don't do that!  Stop that!"  Had it been later in my run, I may have thought "hallucination," but I was only 3 miles in and quite lucid.  Plus, I don't know if a hallucination would have been that bizarre.

Anyway, back on topic, for better or worse it will be all over by 10:30ish PST, Sunday May 1st.



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WTF Did I Sign Up For?

Holy hell, 13 miles is fa... as in "fa, a long, long way to run."

I was cocky after completing that 10k in September.  What's another 7 miles, I thought?  I've already run half of that, how hard can it be?

Turns out, pretty fucking hard.

Damn you, endorphins!  You got me into this mess.

I finally got around to mapping out (not running, driving) 13 miles the other day and I wanted to cry when the odometer hit 6.5 and I realized how far away from my house I was.  When it finally clicked over to 13 at the top of my street, I about had a panic attack.  And I've only got 14 days more to train since I'm not going to run the two days before.  On Monday I ran just over 7.5 miles.  Today I did 10 miles on the elliptical.  I'd like to run the entire distance at least twice before my race (and, yes, I'm already registered so if I back out now that's $65 down the drain), but that's hard to imagine right now.

Wish me luck.


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What Happened to Dolly?

I published, I thought, a post about why I love Dolly Parton.  Where oh where did it go?  Did anyone see it?  It was long.  I'm pissed.



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