20 miles AWESOME!

That was amazing.  What a feeling of accomplishment.  Perhaps it's because the other 20 was so hard, or because the weather was made for running on Sunday, but yesterday's run ROCKED.

So here's the short of it:

I started yesterday with a fever of about 100 even.  Yea, I know.  And I still went.  I didn't really want to dwell on it, but I did have one and probably had/have the Swine Flu. (cue the dramatic music).  I was afraid to fully confess it though, because I thought the crew might think is was crazy.  I am the dumbest of the diehards, it's confirmed.  Never the less, I finished my run, showered, rested off and on at teh ER waiting for my kid to be seen with his RUPTURED EAR DRUM and ta da!  No Fever Today!  (Poor kid has a ruptured ear drum, H1N1 and Strep - the trifecta of sickness)

At mile 1 I thought I'd lost my mind when T ran into the forest for a costume adjustment.  Just know this T, I will never drive down Gayton Road again without thinking about that - "hang on a minute" duck into the woods... I mean SERIOUSLY, what is J going to think?  "Hey honey, I'm going for a 4 hour run with G.  I've got the BODY Glide, she's got the DUCT TAPE..." and then you come home in a panti-less state?  

At mile 8 I freaked out when I realized I'd left my Cliff Blocks (HAVE I mentioned how much I LOVE THESE?) at home on the mailbox.  Thankfully my pals were good enough to go back with me for it.  And while that first 8 miles was awesome,  my head wasn't really into it until mile 8.5.  I had to shake off that "I've screwed up my run!" feeling after we went back, and in doing that I think I shook off some of the funk that was plaguing me.  (forgive the poor choice in words when it seems that Richmond is IN FACT infected with the plague).

At mile 10 I had a twist in my gut that made me question if I was going to make it without being sick (one way or another).  But Jack's nonsense chatting and FC's energy were enough to make me forget about it for a while.

At mile 14 I knew it was going to be "OK" and that was a great feeling.  

At mile 16 R joined us, and seeing her waiting on the sidewalk with the big red stroller made me so happy I could have screamed for joy.  

At mile 18 I watched everyone pull away from me and that was hard, so I mustered a bit of "dig deep" and caught up to everyone except T.  "Dig Deep" is what I say to myself when I'm struggling to get moving, and for me, it works pretty well.  It's also good that I routed the last mile to be a very gentle down hill which helped.

At mile 20 I kept running for another .6 miles, and could have run another 6.2 miles IF I'd stopped to visit a 'honey pot', refilled my hydration, etc and so forth.  

And, I got home to discover that I had a nifty race number assignment waiting in my mailbox!  I am disappointed that even though I called to correct the problem with my registration last November, I've still been placed into the slowest corral.  I'm signed up to run with the pace group for 4:30, so regardless of where I'm assigned I will simply start with that group, but I do have a "slow bib number" that starts with a 4.  ("4636" to be exact.)