Saturday: Fourth Boston Training Run

Bitterly getting ready to run

My hair looks kind of great for bedhead!!

Pile of Running Gear

Tea and Apple.  Forgot to defrost my glowing green smoothie

Feigning a good attitude

So last night, I was in bed at 9:15 PM in anticipation of my alarm going off at 5:15 AM (boo) to meet my running group at 6:30 AM.  Getting into bed at 9:15 PM requires a lot of preparation for the morning.  I readied my older son's Ovaltine chocolate milk sippy cup in the event that he got up at the same time that I did.  That way I could give him his chocolate milk and scoot him back to bed or to watch Curious George or whatever is his MO at that point.  I readied bottles of breast milk for my infant son.  I dragged out several options for my running garb as what I wear is always a game day decision.  I charged my Garmin. I set up my green tea and all my food options.  I found Chocolate Mint Gu at REI.  It is rare and seasonal and tastes like an Andes Mint.  It rocks my world.

Now, after reading a bit, I went straight to sleep which was great, but I woke up at 3:00 AM to go the bathroom.  After I got back in bed, I had nightmare after nightmare about showing up to run without something that I desperately needed.  Finally, at 5:00 AM I heard the baby chatting to himself in the nursery and I went ahead and fed him before getting dressed and starting the car.

I have to say that this morning, as cold as it was, as poorly rested as I felt, I had nothing but negative things to say about people like myself who find it necessary to prove something by dragging themselves out of bed to run 20 miles at unreasonable hours of the morning when the rest of the intelligent world is sleeping.

When I was in college, I had this Adidas poster in my dorm room that was a picture of a man training for a marathon.  It said something to the effect of this:  I used to think people that trained for marathons were crazy, then I started running marathons, then I said I would never get up early to train for a marathon, now I am up at 5:00 AM to train for a marathon and it's snowing.

Anyway, if that poster was hanging anywhere in my home it would be solely for serving the purpose of a dart board.  That Adidas poster just seems like smug crazy talk.  If I could make my own Adidas poster to hang in my house now, featuring myself, it would say this:  I am breast feeding and tired and I am still, for some daffy reason, hauling myself out of bed to run with a group of people whom I feel probably take this marathoning business too seriously.  I may have some sort of mental disorder. Tomfoolery.

Anyway, I arrived on time, I ran 20.5 miles.  I was initially freezing, then I was way too hot.  I peeled off some layers and sent them home with another running who was heading home early.  I was then too cold.  Then I was too hot by the time we finished.  I arrived home so that my husband could bike.  I hit the YMCA for a yoga/pilates class and have been pretty much parked somewhere between a nap and the couch ever since.