20 miles, no funerals (yet)

So the big 2-0 was last Saturday. There were two weeks between both my last blog post and my last long run, and in the middle I did not run even a medium-long run because my stomach was acting up...finally figured out it was too much coffee on an empty stomach. Ew.

Anyway, RP and I set out at a decent hour this time, 8 a.m. vs. 6 a.m. of a few weeks ago, and it was rainy but not pouring. We had a lot to talk about, as both of us were having "issues" with our partners which was unexpected for both of us. So as we talked we got sort of agitated and might have sped up a bit. In fact, we did speed up a bit, but it was sort of hard to resist the need to pound it out as we worked through some problems.

Well, that was dumb.

I knew it was dumb at the time and my brain was saying, hey, self, slow it down, you will HATE yourself in about an hour and a half, but I did not slow down enough, and paid the price later, somewhat.

We had dropped a car at a little under/over halfway, so we pit stopped at the car coming and going for a bathroom break at Starbucks, drink refills, and margarita shot bloks (whoever invented those is GENIUS, as they are awesome if you need salt!). Then we started back for the trail, which was at about the 14 mile point.

At this point, we both can run 6 miles with relative ease. I was trying to tell myself "it's only six more miles..." but I just did not want to do it. That's really unusual for me...I usually have no problems mentally with finishing unless it's a race! But we had gone out too fast, sped up too much, and now the last six miles were going to hurt. They did. At one point I kept thinking about epidurals, and how despite my insistence on natural birth once the pitocin kicked in how the epidural felt so good, damn it! I asked RP if I could have an epidural but she was also in a trance, with rap music on LOUD. I really wanted to stop at some point around the 17 mile mark, but crazily, near 18.5, it suddenly got better. I KNEW we were going to finish and be okay, and that my body would carry me through as it's always done. I was listening to my traditional ending song "Where is the Love?" by the Black Eyed Peas and it was SO good, and has such a good happy bouncy rhythm, that I was sad when it ended with a few minutes to go.

I just left my music player on random, because it didn't matter much at that point and I sure wasn't going to use the energy to mess with it, but I did something so silly. I said a prayer that the song that would come on next would be good, would be inspiring, would mean something to me as I finished this long grueling run. I know it's silly what with world peace and everything to be asking for something as simple as this, for a "sign," for a lift, but it happened nonetheless.

It was "Born to Run."