to grunt and sweat under a weary life

I am not a runner.

See exhibit A and exhibit B.

I am a fighter.  When life gives me lemons, I launch those mother-fucking lemons at whoever pissed me the fuck off.  Yo. 

A long, long time ago (last year) when life was literally kicking me in the taco, I got a wild hair up my ass to run a half-marathon.  It was:


1.)  my way of focusing on something other than the big pile o’ shit that was my life
2.)  therapy  
3.)  my way of fighting to stay afloat in this crazy thing we call “life”.

{Side note:  When my life flashes before my eyes, I hope it is not the special extended edition with all the deleted scenes I have blocked from my memory.}


You see, when I run, I have this unlike-Carrie, out-of-body experience and I am able to process my deep-seated neurosis issues logically.  (Full disclosure: I use the term “run” very loosely.  It is more of a hobble, hobble, foot-drag.  Imagine Igor crossed with Verbal Kint in a potato sack race.)  When I am running, I am able to easily come to terms with life’s problems and formulate a reasonable and practical way to work through it.  I feel like I can accomplish anything!  Bring it. 


Contrary to when I refuse to get out of bed and wind up with graham cracker crumbs in the sheets and I am surrounded by used kleenexes and my face looks like a bloated whale carcass.  When this happens, everything seems insurmountable and my life is about to implode on itself and I am going to die of a broken heart like Padme.  (If I’m being honest, and I think we all know honesty-that-will-come-back-to-bite-me-in-the-ass is a specialty of mine, sometimes I still refuse to get out of bed.  But, I digress...)


Anyhoo, in my mind, a half-marathon made sense.  Now, I couldn’t just Forrest Gump my way through this.  I had to have a plan.  It was either have a plan and stick to it, or die a slow and painful death whilst running the half.  (I could just imagine it: my legs cramp up and my body collapses 20 feet before the finish line and I would be trampled to death because I would be, of course, in first place.)  


This was not amateur hour.  I commence to researching, planning, and researching some more and I work out a schedule that would combine cross-training with a couple of short runs* during the week and a long run** on the weekend.  My mileage during the long run would increase by one mile every week, winding up at 13 miles a couple of weeks before The Muther-Fucker of All Races.


*short runs are normally about 2 to 4 miles
**long runs can be anywhere from 5 (depending on where you are starting) to a gazillion miles


So I began my training for my first half.  In August.  Now, certainly it isn’t as hot here as some other places.  (Like Texas.  Death Valley.  Hell.  All about the same.)  But it does get hot and muggy; this is The South.  And I must say so myself, I did amazingly well at sticking to my schedule.  Which is a feat in itself because it interfered with my beer drinking time.  My precious, precious beer drinking time.  I ran, I cycled, and I ran some more.  I ran in the heat, in the cold, in the rain, and in the dark.  I mainly ran on beautiful Asheville days.  (Asheville has an average of 212 sunny days per year, with an average high of 85.  Heaven!)  My favorite place to run is around my neighborhood.  There are majestic views of the Blue Ridge Mountains, friendly neighbors that cheer me on, and most of my routes force me to do a loop, as opposed to an out and back, where I am more likely to get tired and turn back early.  ‘Cuz I can be a total wimp when I start feeling pain.

 Picture of the race taken by an Asheville Citizens Times photographer.  Used here without permission.










When the day came of The Muther-Fucker of All Races, I was ready.  I was pumped.  Booya.  This shit is about to get real!  My awesome friend drove me there, and drove to different spots of the race to cheer me on and get pictures of me.  For the most part of the race, I kept a smile on my face.  I ran with the 2:30 pace group and they were a bunch of nutty girls that would hoop and holler the whole way and make inappropriate sex jokes.  My kind of peeps.  

Then, somewhere along the back half of the race, I lost the pace group.  I want to emphasize that this half-marathon took place in the mountains.  This is not flat land.  I am guessing the elevation gain was probably over 1,000 feet.  The map does not lie:

The last three miles were incredible painful; the last two miles were beastly; and the last mile was just downright cruel.  There was one point within the last 500 feet of the race where I turned a corner, knowing I was so very close, and looked up a steep muther-fucking hill that must have been a 30% grade.  Death could have opened his dark arms in my general direction and I would have run into his embrace willingly.  (Okay, I may be exaggerating just a bit.)

 

 cartoon drawn by The Oatmeal

When I finally crossed the finish line, I practically fell into my friend’s arms and said something along the lines of, “DO NOT EVER LET ME DO THAT AGAIN.  SERIOUSLY, PUNCH ME IN THE FACE IF I TALK ABOUT RUNNING THAT DISTANCE AGAIN!”

Race results: (I was beat by two 70 year-old wrinkly people.  Now that is humbling.) 

So, after all the pain and suffering and torture, I will definitely be running the same half-marathon again this year.  I am that bad-ass.

cartoon drawn by The Oatmeal

 Maybe I am a runner after all.