The night before an endurance event is usually the only time I have difficulty sleeping.   The combination of excitement, anxiety and anticipation keeps me awake sifting through thoughts and pondering all sorts of insoluble  questions:

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?

Why in hell did I choose the hilliest half marathon ever as my re-entrance to the race scene?

Truth be told, not much careful consideration went in to the selection of the Clo Cow Half Marathon as my first race since the Portland Marathon in October 2013.  I’d been contemplating signing up for a half marathon since the spring, eager to pull myself out of the running rut I’d plunged in to after completing 26.2 miles.  I kept coming up with reasons, both credible and crazy, of why I couldn’t make various races work.  And then I stumbled upon the Clo Cow.  OK, I didn’t so much stumble upon it as I found out about it from CMB, who encouraged me to sign up.  Could it be that I’m more pleasant to live with when I’m running regularly and with purpose? Or maybe my beloved was tired of listening to my creative excuses?  Whatever his reasons, once again CMB lovingly gave me the kick in the shorts I needed.  The timing was right.  The distance was right.  The proximity of the course to my home was right.  The hills were right so very wrong- but I didn’t know that yet.  (See, when I sign up for a race I very rarely survey the terrain.  I do look at previous years results, not to see if I can place, but to make sure I won’t come in DFL.)  The results were right.  I registered and  was even able to use my powers of persuasion to convince my girl, TPM, to sign up too which really wasn’t very hard since she’d been racing like a maniac for months and is (thankfully) up for anything running related .

As you’ll recall from my recent entry, MOMMA’S GOT A POTTY MOUTH, TPM and I had been doing our long runs together in the weeks leading up to Sunday’s race.   I didn’t follow a  plan per say, but stayed active in between these training runs with shorter solo mileage and CrossFit classes.  As I reclined in bed Saturday night waiting for my mind to slow down and shut the hell up,  I rationally reminded myself that I had “trained” and was as ready as I was going to be, that incessant worry wasn’t going to do anything for me.  But I knew too much about the hills and the farm animals and the barking dogs so then came the above questions- all of which I attempted to answer until I finally grew bored and fell asleep.

Getting up at 4:30am really stinks, even when you’re a morning person, which  I am.  It’s dark and cold and I’m groggy with worry that I’m going to fall down the stairs or hit the garbage disposal switch instead of the kitchen light and wake up the whole house.  But once I settled on to the couch with my coffee and oatmeal, fully engrossed in a vacuum cleaner infomercial on TV, a familiar feeling washed over me and it wasn’t nervousness or nausea.  It was excitement.  I get to do something I love and I get to push myself and I get to sweat a lot and I get to surround myself with people who are equally nuts and I get to feed off their energy and I get to have my picture taken by professionals and I get a medal AND a t-shirt and I get a bagel and I get to do all this before most people have even crawled out of bed.  

      

TPM and I arrived in downtown Petaluma with plenty of time to get our bearings and snap some pictures before the 7am race start.  It remained so chilly that we had to huddle together for warmth, and so dark that it was necessary  to bring my iPhone in to the port-a-potty to keep from ending up somewhere even darker.  We milled around checking out the small town scene, because with under 1,000 participants between the half marathon and 5k, this was definitely one of the quaintest races I’d ever signed on to do.  There were a bunch of folks decked out in all kinds of cow print attire- socks, sunglasses, shorts, hats, hooves (Not really.  I just threw that in to see if you were paying attention) and also a sizable group of city stiffs to whom such rural rituals were still foreign- we showed up in boring, un-kitschy running duds.  Had I know, I would have totally jumped on that hay wagon bandwagon because I do love me some good old-fashioned showboating.   Anyway,  finally it was time to line up.  We picked our way through the smattering of runners, attempting to appropriately seed ourselves based solely on the looks of our “competitors.”  There were no pace groups or farmers holding up signs to  guide us.  I wedged  Yurbuds in to my ears, cued up my tunes, linked my Garmin and waited…

A rooster crowed, a cow mooed, a gun popped  and we were off!  It turns out that one of the best things about participating in a small race is not spending the first few miles frustratingly weaving between other runners, trying to settle in to an appropriate pace.  We actually were able to start out at a pretty fast clip, before  realizing such a pace was neither comfortable nor sustainable.  However, about a mile and a half in to the race we were confronted by another challenge.  BO.  When I first got a whiff, my initial thought was that I was the offender.  I then took a quick mental inventory (nope, all the clothes I had on were freshly laundered) and even discreetly sniffed my pits (yup, I remembered to apply my powder fresh deodorant) which sent the right Yurbud sailing out of my ear.  TPM and I then made eye contact and right away I could tell, from her greenish complexion, that her nostrils had also been accosted.  We narrowed the culprit down to a couple of unkempt dudes, and decided our best plan of recourse was to sprint on by, leaving both them and their stench in the dust.  I really did not feel like sprinting up hill while attempting to reinsert my ear bud, but that rank asshole left me no choice.  I’m not an unreasonable person.  I get that people sweat when they run.  I downright reek after a bunch of miles.  But to start off a race in dirty clothes that smell like they’ve been fermenting for years (because no one could possible stink that badly after running 1 1/2 miles) when you know you’ll  be surrounded by hundreds of people breathing heavily, is just plain rude.

With that obstacle left behind, we were able to think and breathe clearly enough to tackle the task at hand.

Miles and miles of running uphill then running downhill then uphill then downhill, all the while fussing with my right earbud which refused to stay put.  We stayed together for the first few miles, TPM charging ahead on the ascent (I told you she was in awesome racing shape) while I lagged behind, finally catching up to her by hauling ass on the descent.  It didn’t take long for me to I realize that I needed to “rest” on the downhill (not by walking but by not sprinting) if I was going to finish this race without cowlapsing.  Whenever I train for an event with a friend, it is always understood that when race day arrives, no hand holding is necessary- you run your own race.   So not wanting to hold my buddy back, I watched her slip ahead barreling up those hills like a pro.

I kept at it on my own, never stopping to walk, attempting to distract myself with the playlist I had made the night before.  It turns out my earbuds were more successful than the music in taking my mind of the hill climbs because the right one would not stay anchored in my ear.  I ran. It popped out.  I reinserted it (while running).  It popped out.  I reinserted it (while running). It popped out.   I mentally crafted a letter to the Yurbud manufacturer  which contained many 5 cent words.  I tried to focus on the serene view.  I tried to settle in and find a pace.  But that goddamn earbud would not cut me a break.  As I approached mile 5, and the most challenging of the hills, I knew that hell was imminent.  I had to find a way to get the piece of shit to stay in my ear or I was never going to make it up.  And that’s when I became certain I was either developing a migraine or was about to pass out.  I felt fine, considering, but began experiencing a colorful aura in my right eye’s peripheral vision.  I then heard a distant voice.  “Oh shit I’m going down!”, I thought, until I looked to my right and saw a tall guy wearing a crazy vibrant shirt, whose lips were moving.  I was only too happy to tear out my right earbud and shove it in to my bra,  it would  only be  a matter of time before it came out on its own, in order to hear what he was saying.  I joined the already in progress conversation just in time to hear him say something about being sore from CrossFit.  My right ear, finally free, perked up.  We easily fell in to conversation about our boxes and WODS and before long were chuckling  in banter, all while we climbed that hill.  Somewhere in there, another comrade joined us in the ascent, easing in to step beside us as he thanked me and my comic relief for the entertainment.  Together we reached the apex of the course which was also the turn around point.  I think I thanked them for getting me up the hill, assuming we would give a collective sigh of relief at our achievement and go our separate ways.  But it turned out that our trio- Tony, Eric and VJB– were inseparable, at least until we happened upon a water station where we would briefly disband before drifting back together, often with other runners in tow.  There was no shortage of lively conversation as we ran and ran and ran.  We talked about running, our kids,  I might have even gone on about my love of bacon for a mile or two.  The hills rolled on, other folks hopped on and off our party train, but in the end me and my people wrapped up that adventure together in 2:08:38, give or take a few seconds.  This time was no personal best, but I definitely had the best time running a half marathon- better than I’d had in a good, long while- and without a doubt  achieved my goal of enjoying myself while racing.  So Tony and Eric if you’re reading this, wherever you are and whatever your initials might be, I’m not going to say I couldn’t have done it without you- because I totally could have- but I for sure would not have had as much fun.

 

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