Today in my teenage angst, I would first like to say that I love to make excuses. I am so lazy. Whenever I say this, one of my favorite profs at school replies, "as are we all." She's the cutest and I love her, but it doesn't make me feel any better about my laziness. Going into the Queen City Marathon 2013, I had such high hopes. I was going to train better and more consistently. That was the whole hope: get stronger, be better, finish faster. I did not.
When I started "training" in the spring I had a lot of trouble with my hip flexors, which made my knees feel like they weren't supposed to be a part of my legs, which made everything feel so much worse. Small reminder that I love excuses. So I stopped running for a while and did a lot of stretching, rolling, I went to the chiropractor. I got these new shoes and orthodics that I saved for forever and they made the front half of my feet fall asleep when I ran. So I ran a little. Like twenty minutes at a time, every once in a while. Suddenly it was the end of July and I hadn't done a single long run. So I did a long run. It was hell. I had to take my shoes off every two miles to wake my feet back up. I didn't run in between my long runs, but thought that was probably alright because I couldn't remember running that much inbetween long runs the year before. It wasn't; it wasn't alright.
So I got to the day of and I was super nervous. I ate a bagel beforehand, and it was so delicious. Do people know how delicious bagels are??? At this point, my sister was more excited than I was. Once we got there and I started filming and tweeting and stuff, I got excited too. One of the trainers from my gym came and wished me luck and was all affirming and stuff. And then we started running. The first seven miles were amazing. I felt strong, I found a pace buddy. I was all like, I'm over half done! I really thought I could make my time. It was super overcast, so the weather was ideal. Once we hit mile 8 my feet started faling asleep. This bone behind my big toe was rubbing on part of my shoe giving it a ridiculous bruise. I retied my shoes three times. I had blisters. Many. I took off my shoes for mile 9 but had to put them back on for mile ten. By mile 11 I had to run/walk 60/30 second splits; until the end. Three miles of 60/30 run/walks. I was so tired. My phone wasn't working so I couldn't even document the way I wanted to and I'm sorry, but there is little worse than not being able to social mediate the way you want to. I just wanted it to be over. Finally, I crossed the line. They put my medal around my neck, and I was immediately freezing. I wanted to cry but I couldn't breathe as it was, so I didn't. I went to find my sister but couldn't, so I just sat on the ground and waited. Beth eventually found me with my best friend and her daughter, who was in fine form and found my pathetic state pretty hilarious.
Queen City 2013 was the worst. The. Worst. I looked at Beth after and said, I can't do this again next year. She said she was sad and really loved doing this event with me. We have to leave at 6.45 in the morning to get there on time, and she just sits around for two hours, so I can't figure why she likes it so much. Either way, that was September 8th, 2013. I didn't run again until today. And I didn't even run today; I used the elliptical. The marathon was awful enough to make me question why on earth I do this. My body hates it, I can talk myself out of it so easily, and in the end I never see improvement.
So I'm trying to decide if I'm actually not going to sign up again and if I even can and want to and will do it. And here's all I can think about. QCM 2012 was so fun. It was my first time and it seemed to take forever, and I had to walk a lot but by the end I was just pretty pumped about it. I hurt a lot after, but ultimately it was really rewarding. QCM 2013 sucked. 'nuff said. But it can't suck once and be awesome once. That's not enough to quit. It has to be a two out of three, majority situation. So I'm doing the Queen City Marathon for the third time, this year. I went to the gym today, because while I don't necessarily want to do it, I believe I can do it, and I know I will do it. I want to be stronger and after a four month break, I'm a pretty sad sack. If it sucks, I'll stop. But if it's awesome, then that's that. I just can't quit yet. So I'm not. Stay tuned for what I am sure will be a sucktastic training season.
