Ragnar Mileage
Apparently, the location where we were to finish on Friday evening was ‘double booked’ so we now are finishing in the parking lot of RFK Stadium. Yeah. Parking lot doesn’t have the same fun ring to it as Georgetown does it? Also, that means our mileage had to change due to the race route making such a big change. Guess how many miles I get to run? Ready? 22.9 miles. Yeah. 22.9. And here I deferred Marine Corps because I felt like I wasn’t prepared to run 26.2. Well hell, if I can run 22.9, 4.8 of which will happen in the middle of the night after little to no sleep, I bet I could have done the 26.2 surrounded by thousands of people and after having a good night sleep and a belly full of pasta!
Think positive girl!
Here is my other tiny concern. The other day, the dog escaped so I went sprinting like a crazy woman down the street screaming his name (at what point to puppies hear their name, stop, turn and come??) and I was barefoot because really, who takes the time to put on shoes when there bajillion dollar puppy is flying down the street? Anyway, I stepped on an acorn and did something crazy to the bottom of my left foot. It still hurts! There isn’t any swelling and no bruise but I can’t walk on it when I am barefoot. I kind of tilt my foot to the left to keep it from laying flat on the floor and as a result of that, the muscle up the outside part of my calf is sore too. I know. Could I be more of a mess?? I’m hoping that if I just jack myself up full of Advil and think happy thoughts, I wont notice it during the race but it has me a bit concerned.
Today I’m meeting the team to decorate our vans which should be super fun. Then we have a team dinner at 6:00 and then, those of us in van 1 are heading up to Hagerstown! I’m so excited and trying to tame the butterflies in my stomach at the same time! My other big project today is to pack! I have to give a major shout out to @runningrelays who sent me a ton of links to her fantastic site all of which have helped me immensely with packing. She is so knowledgeable and sweet to take the time out to help a total stranger – thank you, thank you, thank you!! Thanks to her help, I feel set with regard to food and daytime runs but having never run in the middle of the night before and being a bit of a cold wimp, I’m not sure exactly what to wear during that leg but pants do come to mind. And adrenaline. Yes, must pack the adrenaline!
Technical Woes
At some point, I promise my text will get bigger. I’m killing my eyes trying to read my own stuff so I can only imagine how annoying it is for you guys. This really doesn’t seem like it should be this difficult Mr. WordPress!
Finally Made a Move!
So here I am at WordPress. And totally confused. Like, so confused that it’s taken me 2 weeks to put up my first post. All the things I’ve gotten so used to over at Blogger are totally different here at WordPress but I’m determined to make it work! A change was needed! (how the heck to I change the font??) Anyway, I used to blog over at www.runthirteenpointone.blogspot.com (how the heck to I insert a link??) but blogger has been getting me down for a while now so here I am! I figure in 3 or 4 months, I’ll know how to do a few things. Maybe.
Now that summer is over (today is the first day of fall – yay!!) it’s time to get my butt back into the blogging world. I’ve missed it! But believe me, I spared you some seriously boring reading. My posts all summer long would have consisted of what camp or activity I drove my kids to and how swimming lessons were going and, um, yeah, that’s about it. Did I run a lot? No. Did my training come to a screeching hault? Yup. Unfortunately it did and I’m paying the price for that now…more on that in a minute. Did I still get to my favorite strength training class at the gym? Nope. In fact, all summer long, I made it to exactly one ST class. Yeahhhhh. So. There you go. Bored yet? I thought so which is why I took the summer off from blogging. Your welcome.
Rather than rehash the entire summer, I’ll leave it at two main points – the good news and the bad news if you will.
The Good News: We got a puppy! I know! Woo! First of all, what the hell was I thinking…little kid entered 1st grade this year which means I should finally have a full day to myself to run, go to the gym AND get some errands done but nooooo, I had to go and get a puppy! Moron. So far, while I’ve made it back to the gym for my class, I’ve mostly spent all my new free time taking Murphy out every hour on the hour in my attempts at house breaking. Wow. Um. SO not fun. Oh, and I get to do this while totally exhausted because pup thinks waking up 1 or 2 times a night is a cool thing to do. Dude. Standing out in my backyard in the middle of the night is not my idea of cool.
The Bad News: Due to my slacker filled summer, I had to defer the Marine Corps Marathon. I’m not going to say much about this because to be honest, I’m still really upset about it. It’s my own fault, I kept telling myself I had a ton of time and I’d get out there ‘next week’ which only lead to another week, etc. All of a sudden, I looked at the calendar and found I had 40 days until MCM and the most I had run was a single 13 miler. That’s when I made the tough decision to defer. I’m upset and mad and still not over it so I’m not going to say more for fear of crying.
Ok, enough feeling sorry for myself! On to the future! This weekend is the Ragnar Relay!! I’m really excited but a bit anxious as well as this is totally out of my comfort zone. The race starts on Friday morning at 8:00. I’m the second runner so I should get started on my first leg around 9:15. Originally, the finish was in Georgetown but we just learned that it has been changed to the parking lot of RFK Stadium….doesn’t have the same fun ring to it, does it? Anyway, apparently the change is going to add some miles to our legs but at this point, my first leg is 9.2 miles. My second leg which should take place around 2:00 or 2:30 am is 3.4 miles and my final leg, the one I’m most concerned about because of fatigue is another 9.8. Anyone every participated in a race like this? And if so, do you have any tips for me?? I hear it is a lot of fun so I’m just trying to get out of my need to know all details and just go with it.
I hope those of you who read me over at blogger found your way here. I missed you all and your helpful, funny and uplifting comments!!
