mustard (not catch-up)

Every time I think about blogging I think about having to write a catch-up post and then I lost all interest in blogging. Meh! So I'm just going to go ahead and not catch you up! Take that, internet!

Okay, kind of a lie. What I do want to say is this:

The Chicago Marathon is three weeks from tomorrow and my training is just not where I wanted it to be at this point. This is the result of a lot of things; of taking a part-time job in Madison that ended up as a 60+-hour-per-week job; of Kismet dying, of moving to a brand-new city and starting a brand-new job in the middle of heat-wave and hurricane season and having zero idea of where to go to run, but mostly, when you get down to it, is it the result of a lot of excuses and a lack of mental toughness. After about three weeks of failing to stick to my training, it also turned into a situation where I would plan to go for a long run, then instead of going I would sit in a corner and eat my hair with panic over the fact that the race was fast approaching. All of this sucks. I am unhappy about it. But, it is what it is and at the end of the day if I don't want to die on the streets of Chicago, I need to suck it up and do what I can for the remaining time. So, thanks to my brand-new running guru (acquired on dailymile; if you're not on dailymile, stop reading this and go join immediately), I am on a new plan and I am still running the marathon, I just believe it will be much more painful (so much more painful) than it would have been if I had been smarter about all of this. (Also, my new plan started two weeks ago, lest you think I am busy trying to cram unrealistic training into three weeks. ALSO, it's not like I didn't train at all, I just didn't train the way I wanted to, moving on.) Y'ALL REALIZE THAT MEANS I AM GOING TO HAVE TO DO ANOTHER MARATHON RIGHT, in order to see if I can Realize My Potential? LET'S NOT TALK ABOUT IT.

Instead let's talk about this: this morning I got out of bed, drank some coffee, ate a breakfast sandwich, sat around for awhile thinking about how much I did not want to go running, got dressed, drove to the starting point of the 17-mile run I had mapped out, sat in my car at the starting point for awhile thinking about how much I did not want to go running, then got out of the car and ran 17 miles. WHAT.

Here is the thing. I live in a beach town now. So I ran on the beach. Well, sort of, actually I just ran adjacent to the beach because I didn't feel like dealing with sand in my Mizunos, but I ran over a bridge on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway and up and down a beachtown admiring the big houses and then back which is just so much better than running other places, like in Wisconsin by the BP station. I was only supposed to do 16 miles today, but I found this route online already plotted for me, so shrug. JUST TACKED ON AN EXTRA MILE. WHO AM I. I listened to music the entire time, which I don't think I've ever done on an outside run, but it was exactly the extra boost I needed to get out the door. 17 miles later my legs hate me, but whatever. I am especially excited that I brought neither water nor nutrition on the run (it's finally cooler here, I actually ran in capri leggings), and while I did make a water stop the lack of energy gels didn't get me at all. I also took two walking breaks, one for about two minutes and the other for about four. All in all, pretty good stuff.

I'd like to thank Papa John's and Indian food for making my pre-night fueling happen, and I would also like to thank the Michigan Wolverines for winning so handily today that the game was over when I got back. After last week's shenanigans against Notre Dame, we needed a little bit of a break from each other, but don't worry boys, I thought of you many times on my run.