Oh Everest, My Everest

WHAT THE HELL.

I hardly want to relive yesterday's run, but I need to get down some sort of record of my first 20-miler in life... if you can even count those last 6 miles.

Let's just say that I went to dark, dark places in my head. The Mile-14 onset Tourette's was mild, but my cognitive processes began to break down badly at that point. I played every game I knew to make the time pass and push through the pain: lasso the person running in front of me, lasso that kayaker on the river, look at that lady in front of me I am so faster than she is 1-2-3 go, wheels on the feet go 'round and 'round, just stay with Space Mountain Train the trusty pacer, count as high as I can in various languages, name the stops on the NYC subway lines I've lived on, name the stops on the DC metro, SCREW THE ALPHABET I WILL NOT SING THE ALPHABET, count again in japanese and pretend I'm doing push-ups oh look how easy this is without the push-ups, remember that day when I was running miserably for what seemed like forever thank god I am on a leisurely bike ride now just watching the memory of me suffer, if you don't stay ahead of at least one person in this group the lions will eat you... and so on.

I had to think of some new ones, too. The best one was magic shoes! Magic shoes come in two varieties: the kind with little wings on them that whisk you around like a little mythological courier and the kind that run by themselves and carry you forward as if you were amazingly fast and perfect and had to expend no effort whatsoever. The thing about magic shoes, though, is that they are only for gods and immortals to wear and the price to pay for greatness as a mortal is that they burn your puny mortal skin. But to be great you just live with the burning pain in your feet because you get to wear magic shoes and be awesome like gods and immortals.

Magic shoes only worked for so long. They got me through the rough spots up until mile 14. Then I had to play, OH GOD THIS HURTS SO MUCH WHAT COULD HURT WORSE THAN THIS SO I CAN BE THANKFUL I AM NOT DOING THAT INSTEAD? Answers included:

*Here is a wall made of spikes and now you have to kick it!

*Here take this knife and carve chunks of flesh out of your legs to put in this bowl.

*Hey let's play soccer and you get a penalty kick OH MY GOD JUST KIDDING IT WAS A GIANT UPRIGHT BLADE NOT A BALL and the lower half of your leg is now sliced in half!

*What do you think will happen if I put my foot in this blender?

Phew! Thank goodness I'm not doing any of that and I'm just here running these nice and easy 20 miles today. What a leisurely day!

That never lasted long either. I ended up in fantasy land a lot...

Oh my gosh I have to keep running or that ringwraith will cut me up and feed me to those nasty orcs. But when I almost dove into a ditch a few times to evade the dark lords, I decided I'd better try daydreaming about real life instead. I pictured myself approaching the end of mile 26 on marathon day and seeing mister-man standing at an oddly placed aid station there. I run over to kiss him and he says, "I'm coming with you!" and I grin and pick him up and go charging up that final hill to the statue where my friends are all waiting and take a glorious picture of me carrying my boyfriend and looking strong as a horse. Hey, man, that's totally unrealistic. Stop it. Okay, okay. So I get to mile 26 and there is that final hill to cover and there are all of my friends watching me and I can't feel my legs. I suck it up and I go charging up that hill and push some suckers out of my way for a glorious finish. Maybe that can actually happen. (Well, maybe I shouldn't push any suckers.)

Anyway, now that it's all over and I review my data, I see that there is a good possibility I will be capable of this. It felt like I completely broke down during the whole last five miles, but I actually stayed well within my target pace range on the last two miles, even with the stops to stretch and some walking. See, usually it's such a big hurdle to even get myself to run again that I run as fast as I can just to get more distance covered and "earn" some more walking (or limping or crying), which I do for as long as I can stand myself. Then when I am thoroughly disgusted with myself again, I run fast some more. Every time this happens, it FEELS like I'm actually going to make good time when I average out the walking and running, but I always still come in at at least 2-3 minutes slower than my normal pace.

Maybe I can thank my week of Army ROTC PT, but somehow I actually ran fast for long enough to bring my average pace back down to normal. I'd look at my watch in the middle of it and see I was doing somewhere between a 9- and 11-minute pace, which was remarkable for how crappy I felt. Then I'd remind myself about every other time I use this technique and how I always end up taking too long anyway. I really didn't expect to see any good news in the data, but darn it if I didn't run miles 19 and 20 in 13:20 and 12:08, respectively!

I didn't exactly achieve a negative split, but I ran my 19th mile faster than I ran 11 of the other 19 miles, and my 20th was the fastest mile of them all! I do recognize that this is some kind of victory, but I'm still in too much shock (and pain) to actually feel happy about it.



...Also I had my first chafing experience (WTF) and now I have to buy body glide (WTF). I don't want to talk about it. >:(

Labels: Army ROTC, caffeine, chafing, long run, magic shoes, mind games, nsaids, PT, shot blocks