Mourning Becomes Electrolytes
So I know all I ever talk about anymore is running and the marathon and such. My friend Dan informed me that my self-deprecating posts about how crap I am at this undertaking are “not as funny as [I] think they are.” (Thanks, DAN! Appreciate the feedback! Have you met my friend, Mr. Suckitdan, yet?)
But this is…pretty much all that’s going on in my life lately that doesn’t involve cats (already widely covered), work (not something I really blog much about), or beer (and that’s happening less and less what with me actually doing exercises that are not “lift drink to mouth, repeat”). And it’s my blog, so if you gotta problem with that, I would like to politely introduce you to a little something I call “The Hand,” and urge you to converse with it.
Ahem. Anyway…
Week four was pure crap. It marked the first time I didn’t cop out on any of the runs or workouts (yay!), but also the first time I really started wondering whether or not I can actually do this thing. I was tired. I walked most of my mileage, bitching all the while, and had some major heat issues on my long run that left my head dizzy and my hands sausage-esque.
My sister also informed me this week that if you can’t make it across a bridge at Mile 19 by a certain time, they re-open the bridge to traffic and you have to take a humiliating “Losers Shuttle” back, effectively forfieting the rest of the race. My new goal, aside from just “finishing alive,” is to not end up riding the Fatty Bus back to Loserville.
So all in all, a demoralizing week. Saturday, I went out on the Mt. Vernon trail to do the four miles round trip up to Reagan Airport and back. It’s a beautiful trail, not very hilly, I can see it being really enjoyable to those who aren’t in danger of keeling over and dying on the ground alongside it, unlike me.
The worst part was the entire second mile, when I was trailing a family out for a pleasure walk. They were flip-flopped tourists, strolling along, carrying shopping bags, conversing. I was behind them, and could not. catch. the eff. UP. No matter how much I gasped or how hard I tried to add a little actual “power” to my power-walking (having abandoned jogging after the first half mile, during which I lost more fluids in the 90 degree heat than that gross guy with the armpit sprinklers in the new Axe deodorant ads). Just a bit unsettling, particularly since they kept looking over their shoulders at me, no doubt confused as to why the drenched tomato making all the racket with the huffing and the groaning couldn’t just pass them already. Eventually they stopped to take pictures, which I interpreted as a pity move. “Let’s just pretend to take a picture so the sweaty dying girl can get by us…cheeeese!”
Then, there’s nutrition. Sigh.
The good news is, I’m officially pissed. The bad news is, after heading to Maine and New Hampshire to visit friends and attend a wedding last weekend, consuming along the way approximately my weight in fried foods and drinks, I managed to lose exactly 0 weight last week. The cheerful lady at Weigth Watchers assured me this was a GOOD thing, as I had babbled to her all my excuses prior to getting on the scale, and I’m sure that running actually did stave off a massive uptick in LB’s….but damnit. i kind of thought I’d get off the hook. This is the most I’ve exercised in months, I can’t have one bad weekend of booze and junk-food consumption without punishment?
I am now ranking my metabolism somewhere in the vicinity of my Mr. Suckitdan, in terms of affecting the mood of this update. So, onto the Facts n Figures:
Week 4 of this Godforsaken Why Did I Do This And Where’s the Emergency Exit Training:
Day 1: Rest
Day 2: 2 miles, 29:50, walk/jog, hurt like a sonofabitch.
Day 3: 2 miles, 30:30, walk/jog, followed up with Jillian Michael’s Shred, which coincidentally? Also hurt like a sonofabitch.
Day 4: Rest (swapped out the rest day this week)
Day 5: 2.3 miles, 35:00, walked all of it, and not much different than my walk/jog pace, interestingly. Also did 20 minutes of hills training on staitionary bike, which was a LOT harder than I thought it’d be)
Day 6: Cross day, got up early to do the Shred before work. Decided Jillian can also suck it, along with Dan.
Day 7: 4 miles, a billion hours, as I had to walk the last mile at around the pace of a paralyzed snail, so as not to, you know, actually die, as opposed to just making jokes about same repeatedly to torment Dan. Must, must, must start doing long runs early in the morning–the 90 degree weather absolutely destroyed me, and my hands swelled up to the size of catcher’s mitts. Also got a bit lightheaded. Very bad day.
Weight: 100 lbs (see previous entry for explanation on this entirely fictional starting weight!). That’s right, after getting all fired up, I lost NO weight. How embarassing. But this week has gone much better on nutrition, except for some missteps this weekend and maybe a bit too much to drink a couple times. Memorial Day weekend during week 2 of a new nutrition plan? Is balls.
(New Mantra: Next week will be better, you will not end up on the Fatty Bus to Loserville, you will not actually die on the side of the Mt. Vernon Trail and end up a bloated corpse floating around in the Potomac and frightening the tourists on the water taxi…you will NOT.)
In 1910 the Tour de France introduced the broom wagon – or la voiture balai. The purpose of this vehicle is to “sweep up” riders at the back of the field who can no longer continue or simply wish to retire from the race. Their numbers are unceremoniously removed and they are bundled into the back. Star riders rarely use the broom wagon, preferring the less inauspicious option of climbing into the back of their team cars. And yes, the bus literally has brooms on the front grill.
Luckily the Burlington Marathon does not do this but they will re-open streets to traffic 3 hours after the first runner goes by a marker. Otherwise, I would never be able to leave our house on the Sunday of Memorial Day.
hahaha! I think your running posts are funny, but probably because I’ve totally been there and could have written this myself. They had a fatty losers bus at the 15K Brooke and I ran at Disney world. I had nightmares about shuffling along right in front of it swearing I would finish. I made it in plenty of time. Also, after eating your body weight in fried foods washed down with booze, I’d say breaking even is a good thing. Plus, you still only weigh 100 lbs so you got that going for you.
Maybe you should start a separate running blog. All of ours sound like this and we find it interesting and entertaining.
Greg–luckily, I think I get something like 4 or 5 hours to make it to mile 19 before the Fatty Bus comes into play. Which SHOULD be doable, but with the rate I am “improving,” who really knows?
Lauren–I am way too lazy to start up a separate blog. I can hardly keep this one going! My non-running readers will just have to deal. And I will try to make more of an effort to include non-running bones to throw to them on occasion.
Alright Alright, all I said was you should have a more positive attitude, because self deprecating humor can eventually get a little tired if every post is about how much you suck at running.
You’ve shaved lots of time off your runs, and you are able to run significantly longer than you could 5 weeks ago, so concentrate on your victories, and soon you’ll have less and less things to complain about.
Then again my comments may have just been self serving, because when you post positive comments it makes me want to work harder to match you…
Ha! Match me? You already beat me on all your times.
I’m a whiner, I definitely know this. I promise to post something positive next time–3 miles tonight, hoping to do it in 40 minutes. Let’s see what happens!
You should have stepped on the backs of the tourists’ Crocs.
I would have, if I could have gotten closer than 25 yards.
In my defense they were way ahead of me when I first spotted them, so I did close in, but then remained 25 yards or so behind for approximately the next 400 years.
At the rate you’ve been running, it should only take somewhere between 5 and 7 hours for you to finish a marathon. I’ve heard that when people have jobs, they tend to work somewhere between 4 and 8 hours a day. Interesting? No. I’m just bored. When is this abomination of the human condition taking place? Unless you are being chased by the cops or a Cougar, there is no real reason for running. Have fun, keep it up.