Guts, Yes. Glory, Not So Much...

Photo by Loomcom

“Don’t look at the road-kill. It’s disgusting with all those insides out everywhere. Why are you looking at the road-kill? You know, it’s not going to get any less disgusting if you keep looking at it. Really, you can stop looking at it. OK, you know what, Fine. Just keep looking at it then. Maybe it'll come to life, and we can have a nice Pet Cemetary thing going on here, and won't THAT be great?"

This was a typical teen-mile conversation had in the hallways of my failing mind this a.m. Let it be known that I am now afraid all over again of this marathon. I thought I’d cured myself of such a thing by watching Open Water. I said on this day, I’ve cured myself of the marathon fear for I now understand real fear.

Yet, here I sit, re-afraid.

You see, everything on my run today was rolling along just dandily until I hit the teen miles.I was making a dent in the piles of mental laundry (OK, I'm in a hurry, so insert your own clean or dirty thought joke here), I was hitting 8.5-minute miles and I was happy with the way I felt.

Then the whinies started. It was getting hot, my socks were wrinkling up in my shoes, I had the slight suggestion of a cramp, all the suck for long distance songs started to come through my MP3 player (and, no, I don't know why I have suck for long distance songs on my MP3 player. Don't think that's a conversation I've not already had with myself today), anyway - you get the point about the whinies.

I ignored the whinies, and that worked for another mile until they turned into angries. Now it was really hot, my socks were really wrinkly, the cramp was no longer a suggestion, but a screaming kid in aisle four bellow, and the mother of all suck songs to have on a long distance anything came through my wires. The End Has No End by The Strokes. Are you kidding me?Why, whhhhy did I not take this song off after it revealed its motivational vortex to me on the 15K through Hell? Again, another conversation I already had.

So, mid-mile 14 and everything was looking very, very bad. I contemplated reaching for the cell phone and calling home for a ride back. I reached for the cell phone. I touched the keypad with all the happy little numbers glowing a promise of relief and comfort. So happy...

NO! No... go away happy little numbers. Just go away. I don't need you. The happy little numbers went away, but I was already weakened by their glowing motivation radiation, and I broke my cardinal rule of long distance running -- don't stop unless I discover that I've somehow caught on fire.

Oh, the humiliation, but I listened to the evil, little voice inside Mind that said it was OK to stop and take a drink. Come on, just stop for a minute while you take a drink - you don't want to go bopping along with this - you'll spill it everywhere, and THEN you'll be wasting your precious water supply." Just evil.

I stopped all right and took a nice long drink. I heard the little, evil voice laughing now as the muscles in my legs headed for the punch-out clock. No guys!! Stop, we have like four miles to go...come on, come on...yeah I know I stopped, sorry, I'm an idiot! It's the voice dammit, the voice! Help me out, just come on...

Did I ever pay for that stop. I remembered the last time I stopped when it hurt, and how much more it hurt for the stop when I tried to get going again. I almost heard the screeching of cartilage
against bone and the stretching sound of muscles and tendons like dried jerkey. But I got going again and went another mile. Then, I heard the voice again, no, not the voice... but this time I took a different approach. I straightened up authoritatively, lifted my chin, stopped looking at the stupid road-kill and said to the voice:

"P-puuhh-LEEEEzze go uh-uh-way-haaayyy...."

Just laughing then. More evil laughing.

Mile 15 came with a decent amount of pain and mental breakdown. I reached again for the happy glowing buttons of my cell phone, and in my desperation to not succumb, I negotiated a water break...and I stopped to take it.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! What have I done!? I immediately started damage control proceedings. Back to work, back to work, false alarm everyone... we're still running here! It hurt this time, too, but I think I caught it quickly enough so that all major muscle groups were not yet informed of the work stoppage. Three more miles, I can't cave on the last three stupid miles after all this nonsense with road-kill and demonic, happy little buttons.

Mile 16, I thought happy thoughts. I thought of the people I love, imagined them cheering and running along side me. I remembered Kahuna's post about Robo-Stu's thoughts of the Alliance(see margin) rooting him on, and it really was weird but everyone materialized and ran with me then, too. OK, maybe I was a little dehydrated, but it got me to mile 17!

One more mile. I can do one more stupid mile. I do a mile to warm up. It's just one more mile.

And then a very bad thing happened. Road-kill. I TOLD you to stop looking at the ROAD-KILL!!! It was a fresh kill and the sight of it really hit me. Everything went to hell then as I skittered by it, car-accident attracted.

I slowed down, I slowed down too much and started to walk. I started to walk on the last mile of this insanity. How could I slow down to walk? When what I had done dawned on me, I knew there was no hope. I tried to start running again and it just hurt too much. I had nothing left and it was all I could do to get my idiot, road-kill hypnotized self home.

As punishment the pain increased the closer I got. Once I arrived, I stumbled through the door and wound up lying on the family room floor for about half an hour.

Final time 3:08:17. I'm not loving the time, but it was 18 stupid miles! Plus, I wiffed the last mile. I can't believe it.


My husband was thoughtful enough to snap a shot of my collapse. I'd have protested, but I think I was unconscious.

There better not be any road-kill at my marathon.