Wednesday's "low point" was followed by a couple late nights despite feeling ill, the inevitable post-quarter crash of a sick day on Friday, a migraine, a couple rounds of migraine drugs, and a rocky Saturday morning. I woke up, jolted up as I had promised myself the night before that I would do, walked around the bed, lost my balance in the spinning room, stepped on the edge of the scale and flipped it over and fell into my bookshelf. My failed attempt at making it to the bathroom resulted in another half hour of bed time spent worrying about whether I could get upright or make up this run.
I took a pain reliever with caffeine in my nightstand and put head to pillow. I was supposed to get up to run 7 miles with the group before starting the official Grete's Great Gallop half marathon in Central Park. As the minutes ticked by, I kept recalculating how quickly I'd have to get out the door and run 7 miles to make it to the start and stick to the plan. I finally gave in to the suggestions of resting for half an hour before making any decisions, and I think that saved the day.
I was able to eat a muffin and drink some water, and I got rid of the dizziness as long as I didn't bend over. I dressed, put on my brand new fresh and bouncy white-laced shoes, picked up my race number and timer tag and got in three miles before starting the race. The weather was perfect. I needed my long sleeves for the first several miles of the morning, but my legs were just warm enough to be in shorts. The air was crisp and dewy, the sun shone the whole way through.
I stood waiting in my pen to be released at the start and found myself next to a woman keeping herself warm in a giant black hefty bag. I must have been staring at her because she gave me a dirty look and exclaimed that she was cold and asked nobody/herself/god? what the heck else she was supposed to do about it. It's not like she had some kind of grotesque physical attribute that all rules of polite society dictated that I pretend not to notice. It was early, I was having a rough morning and zoning out a bit and my half glazed over eyes caught sight of a little woman in a big shiny bag. So I looked and ended up laughing on the inside at her response, which loosened me up just as my group pushed forward to cross the starting line.
The race was two of the biggest clockwise loops around the park, plus a little to bring the total to 13.1. Just at the bottom of the long hill, a volunteer repeated to all the passersby "Just three more miles to go ... from the next time you see me! I promise you that I will be here for you. I promise you, I promise you." He seemed sincere and I found myself wondering, as I completed the next loop, whether he would really still be there for the slower pokes and hoping that he would. For someone who is not generally over-welcoming or trusting of strangers, in the effort to avoid feeling alone in these big challenging ones, I've found myself embracing random volunteers and runners surprisingly quickly and openly.
The first of the elite men sped by ALREADY. They always look like cheetahs to me, thin and graceful and incredibly fast without looking like it's hard work. It's exhilarating to see them whiz by even though it feels as though we are running entirely different events.
After that hill, I heard my name called out from the side of the road. It was two women from my running group who had just pulled over for a pit stop. I ran with them, chatting, for the next lap. We saw a few elliptical bikes and a runner behind us chimed into the conversation with her take on them as a personal trainer, and then offering us free training advice. Nice but loony tunes enough that after a few more minutes we didn't mind losing her as we headed up another little hill.
I passed park rangers with full on ranger gear conferring overly rangerly things and posting something on the light poles. A few paces ahead, I saw that those somethings were warnings about park animals testing positive for rabies. For the rest of the day, I got nervous each time a squirrel took just a little too long scurrying away at our approaching footsteps.
Then we were back at the bottom of the long hill and my volunteer man was there as promised, hands outstretched, calling for everyone to slap his hands for magic hill energy that would make the ground fly under our feet. After that, every volunteer gave a countdown, Three more miles to go!, Two more-- almost there! Last mile!
By the time they shouted for the last mile, my support person was there to smile, tell me I looked great and jog alongside me a few paces. It was exactly what I needed, exactly when I needed it.
I crossed the finish line (with a half marathon time of 2:31:10) and kept running. The finish line marked 16.1 miles for me, and I had 3.9 to go. They were not fun. I was tired, but mostly just feeling over it. I was bored by the park and had had enough with my mind games and forced positive thinking. I left the park before I should have, which meant that in order to get the mileage in, I had to run up Fifth Avenue ten blocks and then down Park. The step after my GPS watch read 20.00 was a walking step.
Next week is 14, then another 20, and then the taper down to the race. That means I just ran as far as I'll go in training!
