The Disastrous 20 miler and a great rebound clinic

So when we last left off, I was getting ready to run my 20 miler. I was stoked, I knew I could do it. I did 18 and still had legs left, I knew I could do 20. So my husband decides he wants to do it with me. As I said before it is nice to have the company. We had such a great long run last time. Off we go then. We get our bottles of Accelerade ready, grab enough GU packets for the two of us, I am ready for this. The dragon inside me is snarling, it wants to do this, or so it misguidedly thinks.

The run started off a little faster then I wanted. Brad had the Garmin on and when I asked our pace, I knew we weren't running 12 minute miles. I made us slow down. I know what speed I need to run distance in. I cannot got faster then that at the start. So we are tooling along, chattering, running through a new development being built behind ours, off across Hull Street into Foxcroft. We are around 6 or so miles. Our strategy was dividing the 20 miles into 4, five mile parts. We ticked off one, on our way to another. At that point we were in Fox Creek another new development, and heading towards Fox Fire after deciding not to run through Fox Field. I believe the developers need a thesaurus or something when they are naming these places. Right now we are surrounded by rapidly (or is it rabidly) growing Fox-something neighborhoods. Let's get original here guys, let's call them something like, "Another Former Farmer Sold His Land, Made a Killing and Now My Elementary, Middle and High Schools Are Grossly Overcrowded Due to Everyone's Greed and Lack of Intelligence By Our Board of Supervisor's to Do Something To Stop It Place". Hmmmm, a little wordy, but sounds right to me, ahhhh, I digress, back to our run.

Well something scary happened at about mile 11, I felt weird. I was quiet, Brad asked what was wrong and I told him I felt like I was in survival mode. Not good, just like I needed to maintain to finish. We continue on a few more paces and Brad asks if I want to do a walk break. I tell him no, because I was afraid I would never go back to running. We continue a minute or two more and then I reached for Brad. He was a few paces ahead and I couldn't touch him. But I said loudly enough for him to hear, " I think I have to stop, I think I am going to pass out" and with that, I had to sit. I was so woozy. Brad looked like he was going to run to St. Francis, the hospital nearby, to get help. He looked so scared! I was kind of freaked. Maybe it was because I was sitting on the sidewalk, with my head between my legs, feeling like I was going to faint, maybe it was because while my head was down there I realized just how many spots I missed last time I shaved, maybe it was I started doubting for the first time that I could finish this stupid marathon I am doing. So many maybes....After awhile I got up and felt okay. We walked, and at this point we are easily 6 miles from home. My heart is racing, Brad is panicked, and I feel shaky. Like I had been lifting weights way too heavy for my to lift in the first place. We did a combination of walk/run for a bit, then jogged to Oasis and grabbed some fresh, cold Gatorade. We walked the additional two miles home. I believe we wrapped it up around 16 miles or so. When I got home I just sat around trying to feel human. We had appts. to get to, back to school nights to go to. I didn't have time to do nothing like I wanted. It also gave me plenty of time to think about why it happened and I have nothing. I can't figure out what went wrong. I hydrated properly the day before. I ate properly the day before. I had 1 GU on my way to my second GU, what went wrong. What the heck????

It was with much trepidation that I headed into my Wednesday running clinic. I was afraid of a couple of things. First that I would pass out, the second that I would hold myself back because of my fear and perform horribly. I didn't want to carry that bad run with me and train like I was a bad runner. Not that I'm a great one, and I am certainly no Kenyan. Anyway, I actually considered not going. But went I did. And as luck would have it it was my night to have a hard work out. Brenda likes torturing us like that. One of us, depending on what race we might have coming up, or what training our coaches have set up for that week, wins the prize. You get to hear Brenda utter those fabulous words, You have a hard workout tonight darlin....So I got to bust my rear, and it was okay. I was doing 5 800 meter repeats and she wanted me to do do them in 4 and a half minutes. Four and a half minutes, ha! I laugh in your face. I was hitting the 800 meter mark at 3 minutes and 50 or so seconds. The last one I did in 3 minutes and 54, it was my worst. I would blow past my 800 meter mark and would keep running. I can't say how much farther, because we were running trails, but it was far enough. I didn't need 4:30 to do it in and the best part was, I didn't pass out! 20 miles, this Sunday, I laugh in your face, or do I? Whatever, 20 miles, here I come!!