The first prep race for China

The Great Wall Marathon may be over a year away, but the preparation has already started.  When I announced my plans to run it, my friend Stacy asked if I'd like to run a half marathon with her in Chesapeake, Virginia - the Dismal Swamp Stomp - which took place this past weekend.

Stacy is kind of not human.  She's done 6 marathons, a few half Ironmans, maybe even a full Ironman (I can't remember), and she gave birth to her second child a mere three months ago.  Half marathon 3 months postpartum?  No problem.  If you're Stacy, that is.  If that were me, I'd still be trying to cross the finish line.

This small, flat race was scheduled for a Saturday morning.  That meant fighting traffic leaving DC on a Friday after work, which is never, ever, ever even remotely enjoyable.  Chris and I left just after 5pm.  Thanks to a horrific truck accident hours earlier, we averaged a whopping 35 mph the entire trip.  6 hours after we left DC, we arrived at the hotel that I Hotwire-ninja'd a few weeks back.

I hate driving.  The only thing I hate more than driving is driving in DC.  And this is why.

After not enough hours of sleep, it was race time.  The weather simply couldn't have been more perfect - sunny, low humidity, and temperatures in the low 60s.  I was hydrated and had downed plenty of coffee, but I was still feeling the 6 hour car ride and the lack of sleep.  As we took off, Chris was napping happily in the car.  I was a tad jealous.

The course was an out-and-back that followed a canal trail through the Great Dismal Swamp.  The name sounds like something that will suck the life out of you, but the course was beautiful.  And flat.  Gloriously flat.

I actually thought I had a shot at finishing in under 2 hours.  Then I hit mile 11.  Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Mile 11 was my come-to-Jesus mile.  Why am I doing this?  I should just walk.  Why the hell did I drive 6 hours is infuriating traffic to do this to myself?  Is that bird mocking me?  What am I doing with my life?  Why am I running on a perfectly beautiful Saturday morning?  I should be getting ready to go sit on my ass and drink mimosas and then take a nap.  WHY DO I HATE FUN?

And then just past the 12.5 mile marker, I started to hear people cheering.  Racers that had already finished had ventured back down the course to cheer us on.  Spectators at the finish line were yelling.  

I picked up my pace a little bit.  I got to the finish where the crowds were, including Chris waiting with his iPhone to take a picture.  I tried to not look wiped the hell out.  When I saw the picture later, I just looked kind of constipated.  I can live with that.

Stacy finished a few minutes later, beating her goal time by about 2 minutes.  She rocks.

Stacy's family came over, and we made our way over to the post-race area, where we found runner refreshments of pizza and beer.

Pizza and beer!  At 10am!  This is why I do this.  This is why we drove 6 hours in traffic.  Screw you, waterfowl, I have beer.  This is why I ran 13.1 miles on a beautiful Saturday morning.  THIS IS FUN.

Even better, Stacy gave me her beer tickets since she's nursing a 3 month old.  More beer for Chris and me.  I read once that beer is a good recovery drink.  I don't care if it is or not.  I'm rolling with it, and please don't tell me otherwise.

It was absolutely perfect outside at this point.  Sunny, breezy, perfect temperature, band playing, good friends, and pizza and beer at 10am in a beautiful state park in southern Virginia.  And I beat my old half marathon time by 9.5 minutes (!).

The next morning, Stacy's 3 year-old son was at the hotel breakfast table wearing a Superman outfit.  As you do.  I almost asked him where he got it, but I realized I knew the answer.  He gets it from his mama. Stacy is definitely Superwoman - with super ideas like traveling to run flat half marathons in the glorious springtime weather.  I'm beyond happy that she invited me to join in the fun (traffic and mile 11 be damned) and happy that we both had great races because of it. Now I just have to run twice that distance on the Great Wall of China.  GAH.

What I swore I would never do

I consider myself something of a runner.  I've done a couple of half marathons and 10-milers, along with plenty of 10ks and 5ks.  I've done trail races.  I've done sprint triathlons.  I've run in order to train, and I've run just for fun. But there is one thing I swore I'd never do.

A marathon.

Now, I like running just fine.  If I didn't, I wouldn't have forked over the money for race fees and running shoes. I'm not going to punish both myself and my wallet.  But training for a marathon takes a lot of time.  To me, a long run should take 1-2 hours.  Not 4.  That's just nuts.  I mean, that's half of a normal workday.  Just RUNNING.  And if the long run takes place on the weekend (which it probably does), that's time that could have been spent consuming bottomless mimosas and watching football. Priorities, people.

Done!  Now where's the champagne?

I've been perfectly happy sticking with distances of 13.1 miles or less.  But then my friend Amy just had to send me this:  great-wall-marathon.com.

SWEET JESUS THERE'S A MARATHON ON THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA.

The course covers 2 sections of the Great Wall, which is pretty dadgum steep and has horribly uneven steps.  The rest of the course is pretty hilly, too.  It's also supposed to be hot and humid.  They don't have many water stops, and from what I have read, no port-o-potties, either.  And it's China, so, pollution.  Yay.  Not surprisingly, this is considered to be one of the hardest marathon courses in the world.

So naturally, Amy and I are doing this in May of 2015.   I went from not caring at all to run any garden-variety marathon to wanting to run one of the most difficult marathons in the world in a foreign country.  I am an idiot.  Logic is a lost cause in my world. But I really can't resist the chance to do something crazy in a country that I've never visited.  And Amy knows that.

Amy hasn't done a marathon, either.  We clearly have some research to do.  And a LOT of training.  But we have 1.5 years to figure it all out.  If this doesn't kill us, it's going to be amazing.

OBX half marathon - beaches, beer, and Backstreet Boys

A conversation from June 2012...

Laura:  “Hey, want to run a marathon in the Outer Banks in November?”

Me: “Hell no.  I just did a half marathon.  There is no way I’m running twice that distance. I don’t even want to run another half.”

Laura:  “They have a half marathon, too.”

Me:  “Ok I'll do it.”

Based on my flip-flopping, I’ve clearly missed my calling in life as a politician. 

Anyway, that’s how a group of us found ourselves in North Carolina’s Outer Banks last weekend.  Laura’s marathon training involved never running more than 15 miles.  My training involved going to Alabama and Chile and some very sporadic running in between.  

But who cares?  We were at the beach!  The weather was absolutely perfect for running, we were one block away from the water, we had a hot tub, and the beach was nearly deserted.  

I ran the race, got a PR (beat my old time by over 2.5 minutes!  Training?  Bah, who needs it?), collected my free BBQ and beer (now THAT’s how to put on a race), and wandered with Chris around the adorableness of the town of Manteo where the race ended.  

But I had plans for the rest of the day.  And they were as follows:

1. Taco Bell (ok, that was Chris’s idea, but a brilliant one)
2. Go back to beach
3. Jump in freezing cold Atlantic Ocean
4. Run back to house
5. Grab a cupcake and beer
6. Jump in hot tub with cupcake and beer
7. NEVER GET OUT OF HOT TUB

Things don’t always go according to plan, though.  Here is what actually happened:

1. Taco Bell
2. Go back to beach
3. Dance wildly to the Backstreet Boys blasting from the house next to the beach access, much to the amusement of the people in said house’s hot tub
4. Jump in freezing cold Atlantic Ocean
5. Dance wildly to more music coming from house next to beach
6. Get invited to join party at house next to beach
7. Crash party in house next to beach
8. Drink our new friends’ beer in their hot tub
9. Feel super slow after realizing our new friends are super freakin’ fast runners
10. Get hungry, go back to house for dinner
11. Grab cupcake and beer
12. Jump in hot tub with cupcake and beer.

Ok, I ate the cupcake before ever making it to the hot tub.  Details.  Whatever.

I didn’t complain at all about the slight change in my plans for the day.  I ran a great race, stayed hydrated enough to have beer afterward, got to go to the beach, dance to terrible  boy band music, meet fun new people, and sit in multiple hot tubs.  Before the race, I swore up and down that this would be my last half marathon.  My knee was protesting, I’m not the most dedicated when it comes to training, and races can get expensive.  But after a race day like this, I might have to rethink all that.  Especially when beaches and hot tubs at the Outer Banks are involved.