Flying Piggies.

May 6th, 2008

Ok, so I ran the mofo Flying Pig half marathon, and it was actually really fun.

I knew I would be glad I did it once it was over, it was the whole leading up to it part I wasn’t excited about.

I’ve done this kind of stuff before, but in the past I actually trained and was ready. Real training, like waking up at 6am to run 18 miles. But that was 2004 me. I’m no 2004 me anymore.

Following is the training plan for 2008 me:

Monday: Walk down stairs 4 times. Walk up stairs 4 times. Walk to the kitchen 30 times. Lean over the bed and look for the remote. Pull self up from leaning.

Tuesday: Most of Monday + Ride bike to work, press elevator button 6 times with right finger, repeat 3 times with left.

Wednesday: Some of Monday and Tuesday with a sprinkle of practicing dance moves.

Thursday: 1 push up. Punch Riki in the arm x 2, followed by 3 reps of walking to the liquor store.

Friday: Repeat Monday, plus hold curling iron up for 30 seconds on right side, repeat on left side. Continue until arms get shaky and weak.

And weekends off, of course. But you knew that.

I’ve been on this grueling plan for 3 months, until two weeks ago when I started getting annoying emails every 2 hours from the race organizers reminding me what I had agreed to. EF! So I started cramming for the final and running between 3-6 miles every other day or so. But I wasn’t fooling myself, I knew this shit was gonna be hard and I was not really ready. 3 miles plus 10 more was what I had ahead of me.

With all this in mind, I drove to Cincinnati with Anne and Michelle. Then, as humiliating as this is to admit, we went to Chili’s. But not just went, we google text messaged to find one, and then drove 40 min out of the way to get there. This was the pre-race plan. I also might have had a margarita, it’s all fuzzy now…

But look, here’s Paula Radcliff, super marathon woman who had a kid like a week before winning the NYC marathon. I saw an interview with her once and she said before every race she eats her weight in french fries and has a margarita. Yeah, she said that. See? I’m in good company.

proof!

Anyway, the race went pretty well. I got a serious side stitch at like mile 9, and walked it off for probably a half mile or so.

I finished in 2:26, which I’m happy with… I really thought it would go much worse. Much, much worse.

Also, sorry for the poor quality of these images… I had the camera on some funky setting, plus I was running and all sweaty and uncomfortable. I was in no frame of mind to fix it.

here we are at the start, lined up like a bunch of jerks.

The run was actually really really pretty… we crossed a bunch of bridges.

Michelle and I post race, pre-pigging out. We are Americans first, race finishers second.

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