i'm trained for the Lehigh Marathon should i chose to go ahead with it. i would prefer to run this race for several reasons- one being that it is nearly downhill and i'm dying for my BQ... and two being that my running buddy is registered. and nothing is worse than feeling left out.
tuesday was a 20 miler, and went much much better than my first 20 miler back in february. if we can all recall my first flirtation with this distance, the first thing that comes to mind is six weeks of living in a leg brace... ice ice ice, and heat packs every night. it was the 20 miler that almost took me out of the race. and i'm not sure why. tuesday morning, the planets aligned (after a rather bizarre and dramatic weekend) and things just came together correctly and fell into place. i felt good! i felt really good! no soreness, no stiffness before, during, or afterward. just really conditioned, and ready for anything; delusions of the ultramarathon finish line, and Chariots of Fire theme triumphantly blaring in the background... after mile 15, i was wincing- waiting for the wall to come... sometimes you just have to run out to that point just to make sure it is still there lol... gracefully tiptoe out to that great shining esoteric Ruritania beyond a point most humans fear to tread... gently stroke its border with the tips of your fingers, and retreat from whence you came. you know. just to be safe.
anyway, the wall did not come. somewhere around mile 16, i got into a screaming match with a girl (40-something woman) on a cruising bike on Bellevue... actually, it was me doing the screaming. the cyclist nearly hit me because she was afraid to venture out of the bike lane... which apparently she thought was all hers. she cried "What am I supposed to do?! get hit by a car?!" i stopped running. i turned around. "DON'T GET ON YOUR *#&!#*^ bike if you're out to hit *#^$&!# RUNNERS! pedestrians have right of WAY, you IMBECILE @^#T! If you EVER come that close to me again, i'm knocking you into traffic!" Only about 50 other people outside enjoying their day touring the mansions on Bellevue witnessed this classy discourse. She got as far away from me as she could. and i'm lucky she did. if she had stopped, i would have kicked the crap out of her and her bike and most assuredly been arrested. (Just what the Newport Daily News would have loved to print in their police reports... marathon runner at large after assaulting cyclist after mile 16... resisted arrest because she hadn't yet finished her run... possibly still running) so, never got a chance to fill my muscles with the dreaded lactic acid. shame.
it's okay. i'll make it back some time soon. no leg brace needed of course.
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