The Fifteen Miler

Somewhere along the line, Brian and I had this bright idea that we should run a marathon. Well, I decided that I should run a marathon, and since Brian is married to me, I thought he should do it too. He does have to do whatever I say, after all. Its in our vows.

So, here we are, umpteen weeks later, and the 15-mile long run is staring us in the face. We've tried to be optimistic, but it was intimidating, since the most we've ever run was 13 miles. It was new, uncharted territory, and we weren't sure if our aching calves would get us through or not.

However, we decided to plow onward anyways. After all, I have an excel spreadsheet that says we have to run it today. So, that means we have no choice.

We carbed up, geared up, and got our ipods ready with the appropriate playlists.

We were in a pretty good mood before starting.























The photo above represents how we felt starting out. Fresh, smiling, and optimistic about our run.

Here's how we felt after we were finished:

























No, he doesn't know this is on here. Because he is still asleep in this same position on the couch.

And yes, he is going to kill me.

Anyways, onto the details of the dreaded 15-miler:

As we started out, it started raining. We decided this was no big deal, because the rain kept everything cool. And, it was really only sprinkling. Half an hour later, when we were drenched, we were rethinking our strategy. But, still, our spirits were high, and we kept the faith.

As we rolled onto about the five-mile mark, Brian asked me if Bonnie had been helping with the laundry recently.

"Yes," I replied. "She's been folding laundry for me."

"Has she been helping with the washing machine?"

I thought it over. "Not really. Why?"

Brian pointed to his shorts and I immediately saw his dilemma. He had soap running down his legs. I guess with all of the rain soaking him, and the agitation of him running, it had created its own little wash cycle in his shorts.

Note to self: Use less soap in the laundry.

I tried not to laugh, because he was clearly uncomfortable. But, really, how is this not somewhat funny?

We kept going for another mile, and the foaming continued to get worse.

"I've never seen anything like this happen before," I said as I leaned over to examine the suds running down his legs.

"It itches," he responded. It appeared to me that he was losing his sense of humor about the all of this, but I was not losing mine at all.

"Its like the soap didn't wash out of them at all." I said.

"You think?" he asked me.

"Well," I said, "you should be squeaky clean by the end of this run."

And, we went on for another mile while he scratched at his legs.

Really, all went well (for me, as I was suds-free) until we reach what we call the HOD. HOD stands for Hill Of Death. And, when you are running up it, you are pretty sure you are going to die, hence the name we gave it. We decided we didn't have enough energy for the HOD, and we wussed out and walked up it instead.

Finally, a mile later, we made it to our first water drop. This is kind of how we do our long runs. We hide ice boxes with water and bananas and waffle stingers along our path. Then, we can refill and recharge a little bit. We felt much better after the water drop and we started the 6-mile leg back to our house.

We felt pretty good until about the 10th mile. That's when I started to get tired. My clothes were sticking to me, and I was losing my energy. By this time, the rain had stopped and the soap had dried to Brian's legs. He was a scratching fool.

We walked for a while to try to regain some strength, and picked up the pace again to make it back to the house. We still had almost 3 miles to go, but we decided to change into some dry pants (and less soapy) before the last leg.

The 13th and 14th miles were basically pain. My hips and my calves hurt, and our pace slowed down as a result.

But, then something odd happened the last half mile. Maybe it was knowing that we were about to get home, or maybe it was just the fact that we had dry pants on. But, somehow, we got a second wind and we both started feeling great. We ran the last half mile and a very quick pace and we both felt like we could have kept going if we needed to. It was an awesome way to finish!

And, we got home just in time to walk down to the bus stop to meet the kids. We were wet, sweaty, and dirty, so I am sure they were so proud of their parents waiting to greet them at the bus stop. But, we were there to greet them, regardless. We just figure its our job to embarrass them.

Tonight, we are in our pajamas, and we have been in them since 6:00. We ordered chinese food (delivered), because we did not feel like cooking and we certainly did not want to go out anywhere. Hopefully the soreness won't be too bad tomorrow.

17-miler is in two weeks. Marathon, here we come!

Posted in: running