Hitting the wall

So, I wasn't going to blog about my running adventures until after I completed my half marathon that I'm running the weekend after Thanksgiving, but, well, I changed my mind. Today was my last long training run. I really wanted to do 12 miles--I had hoped to be past the point of 12 miles, but a few obstacles had come up along the way and put my training to where it was coming down to the wire. My friend and running guru, Leslie and her husband Jon are running their second full marathon in a few weeks and needed to run 20 miles today (shudder), so she offered to let me tag along for the first 12 of their 20.

The weather was beautiful--low 60's and sunny, but early on, I knew it wasn't going to be an easy run. I had only run once during the week due to kitchen stuff and just general busyness. not good. With the "heat" and general difficulties, I was concerned about only having two little bottles of water--because now that I'm a "serious" runner, I "gu" during runs and it takes water to get that stuff down. Anyway, about three miles in, I saw a table with a giant gatorade cooler/ thermos thing with cups by it. There was noone around to ask, but I topped off my bottles anyway.

We continued to run. and run. and run some more. I was drinking my water and starting to panic that I wasn't going to have enough to finish the run--all of the local water fountains were turned off for the winter. I had visions of it being hot, me dehydrating, my skeleton laying on the prairie path whilst tumble weeds blew by. I'm not dramatic at all. As we were returning to the spot where I filled up my bottle (we did 6 down and back) I saw a man loading up his car with the table and gatorade. I didn't know if we could make it to him before he drove off. (Well, Jon and Leslie could've made it to him, I wasn't sure about myself--I should've sent them off ahead). Fortunately we did. I hobbled up to him and said "Please sir, (gasp) can I (gasp) have (gasp) some of your (gasp) gator(gasp)ade?" He took pity on me and said he was with a local running club, and was happy to give us as much as we needed. I have never been so thankful to take a beverage from a stranger in my life. The joy of knowing I wasn't going to die from dehydration pushed me on for a bit. Then I hit a wall. I could tell that I was clearly holding Jon and Leslie back. And they still had 10 more mile to run and I didn't want them to take forever on my account and the path was pretty crowded so I wasn't concerned about being raped and murdered, so I forced them to go on without me.

I figured this would be a good time for me to have a nice visit with God. But alas, I couldn't concentrate over the screaming blisters on my feet. My legs were none too quiet either. So instead, I gave myself empty promises that I could walk when I hit certain landmarks. Anyway, I managed to finish it and ran quite a bit of the last 2 miles. Honestly they felt like they took longer than the first 10, but that appears to be the definition of "hitting the wall." So, now I feel even more official. And now I am hobbling around as though I just got off of a horse. And forget about asking me to bend over and pick something up. But, now I know I only have to run one more mile in 2 weeks and then I can be done!!!!

Thank you Jon and Leslie for letting me tag along for the last two weekends!! You guys amaze me!!