20 Mile Prep Talk

I don't need therapy...
it's just duct tape...
wrapped around a running shoe...
what?

As my H prepares to take ALL.3.Kids camping this weekend (without me – cue the music), I’m prepping for my last 20 of this training cycle.  There’s a little part of me that’s skipping about doing a happy dance in anticipation of no more long runs before Richmond.  That's right.  I'm packing my bags for Taper Island! 

and...

There’s a little part of me that’s thinking it might be time to get the prescriptions filled because I don’t know if anyone here remembers what the Taper was like last year, but it was ~ah~ entertaining?...  Maybe entertaining’s NOT the word.   I did produce some really weird (and pointless) art last year during the Taper-Tantrum… 

So it’s my last 20.

So, a jug, a triangle and a roll of
tape walk into a bar...

It’s the first 20 for some runners this weekend.  I met two the other night, and I remember walking away from them thinking, “Oh, wait, they have their first 20 this weekend…I should say…” and then, like an ADHD 8 year old I immediately lost my train of thought.  It's not my fault, there were 2891 people vying for my attention.

Ok.  2.  There were 2 people… 

I think though, that what is so exciting about this weekend’s 20 miler is that I know something that the novice runners don’t realize.  There’s NOTHING like laying down a 20 mile run.  No matter how (well) or (not well) it goes. 

Don't Panic!

If it’s EPIC, you can come off euphoric with the knowledge that you are a FREAKING RUNNING MACHINE and you are going to CRUSH the Richmond Marathon.

If it’s an EPIC FAIL, you can come off the run with the knowledge that on race day there’s going to be THOUSANDS of people lining the streets of RVA ready to cheer for you and you are going to CRUSH the Richmond Marathon. 

It’s funny, at the end of my first 20, which was, um… yeah… I remember thinking “huh.  It’s so anticlimactic.”  We were an hour or so later than we should have been.  We were dehydrated as we slogged back down the street to TMB’s house to finish the run.  But we'd RUN 20 MILES, and there was nothing waiting for me except a ride home in a sucky beige minivan. 

On race day, it will feel NOTHING like a 20 miler.  I assure you.  

I’m not sugar coating it, it’s still going to be hard, but seriously people, no one signs up to run a marathon with the idea that it’s going to be easy.  AND if they do, they’re sadly living in The State of Denial.  Heckfireandshoot – they’re probably the Governator of that State…. 

But ON the day of The Show.  When you come out to RUN LIKE SNOT (or to be COOL LIKE SNOW) (or to TRY NOT TO SUCK) (or to COWBOY UP)… or to just hunt down and chick every Red Shirt you see… it won’t be anything like that 20 miles to nowhere.

It will be so much better.

~savor the run~