Hell on Earth

The alarm went off at 7, my mouth was dry, my head was pounding. As I landed hard on my pillow I thought “there’s no way”. Just as I began to shut my eyes again, a feeling a guilt washed over me. Let me at least try and run. By 9am I had downed 2 pieces of peanut butter toast, too much water and some Excedrin.

I had trouble managing my i-pod when I arrived at the starting point, but was determined to try for 16 miles. Never mind the fact I had been out until the wee hours the night before and enjoyed myself too much. 16 miles on a good day fully prepared is difficult, this was going to be impossible. We took off and at first it felt good. 2 miles in my shins started to ache, I knew it wouldn’t last the whole time and pushed on. I decided that no matter what, I would finish. Decided it was my punishment. I’ll never be able to complete the marathon if I punk out on the long runs. We did this same route 2 weeks ago, I can do it again today.

We finished the first 4.2 mile loop with a 10 min pace, not too shabby. Water…Gu…back on the road. Heading back down Angell St., my quads started to tighten. This was bad, I’m on mile 5 and already pooped. Around mile 7 I felt the Gu kick in and started to gain some pep in my step. Reached the car again, water…Gu…let’s go. Joe didn’t look good, I didn’t feel good. There was an unspoken understanding between us that this was hell and if we talked too much we wouldn’t finish.

Off we went, I have neglected to mention how nice the weather was. At this point in my run, I was dressed in shorts and a tank, the sun felt great on my shoulders. That’s the only thing that felt great. When we turned on to Elmgrove, I was dragging. We still had about 5 miles to go. It was going to be a hard finish. Last stop at the car, everything hurt, I had stopped paying attention to my watch.

We headed down Hope St. for the last time. That first mile was the hardest, we were so close to the car, the urge to turn around was unreal. We ran by a man and his daughter who we ran by earlier in the day. I wanted to shout to him how far I had ran, it’s not like we were out for a quick 5 miles and I looked this bad. 16 god damn miles makes everyone look bad! When I saw the bank in Wayland Square, where we turn onto Angell, I thought I was hallucinating, finally the end was near. I don’t remember the last mile, before I knew it we were at the car. I can’t believe we finished it, hung-over and all. This posting is late because the run almost killed me, spent the rest of the day moping around the house.

No more drinking before a long run, lesson learned.