11-11-11 It Must Be a Good Day

Guess what time we ran this morning? Five-flipping-thirty in the morning! Anyone who knows me is aware of how much I am not a morning person. Usually getting up at 7:30 is an accomplishment. Meesh is a morning person and gets up at that time every day, so you can imagine my surprise when I got up out of my bed and moving before she did. To be fair, she woke up at 3am and went back to sleep again, so she had to be incredibly tired.

Kal came to pick us up and we were off on our longest run since training has started. Our mileage is up to 5 miles on fridays (our long-run day). It felt pretty dang good up until about the last mile, because I had that familiar feeling I experienced on many occations in cross country; that feeling in the pit of your gut. I had to use a restroom and soon. I didn't say anything to the other two, because I didn't want an excuse for slowing down. I felt that it would be better just to pray. It sounded a little bit like, "Please don't let me go in my pants, or I may die of embarrassment and that would be one of the top nastiest moments of my entire life." The feeling faded just enough for me not to be in pain, but the second we crossed the finish line it returned in full force. Kal told me I was limping when we were walking back to the apartment. I couldn't tell that I was, because it was about 20 degrees outside and my whole body was numb, but I think I might have been limping because of how much I had to go to the bathroom.

Kal went home and Meesh and I stretched together. I told her that there was almost no cross country runner who hasn't puked, wet themselves, or pooped themselves while running at some point in their running career. "What about you, Ash?" She asked.

I grinned at her and said, "Yeah, all three. Not all the way, but I have come pretty close." Then I started telling her about how our high school cross country team was well-known by certain restraunts, stores, and gas stations, because we ducked in there so often to use their bathrooms in the middle of our runs. She was laughing so hard I thought I should stop telling stories so she would be able to breathe again. Then with a little concern she asked if there would be places to go during the marathon. I figure they will have one every mile or two.

We are feeling pretty proud of ourselves right now, because we finished 5.22 miles in a time of 45.25 today. I think that is around an 8.45 minute mile-pace. Since this is only the end of our second week of training I'm excited to see what we can do by week five or six!