18.2-Miles-Stoopid

I’m 33, but sometimes I want to act half my age. You know, let loose and be totally silly. Laugh loudly at slightly funny jokes, crack up over outdated movie lines, holler, “WOOOOOOO!” at something mildly exciting, feel sicked out about kissing a total slime-ball…

No, I’m not talking about getting boozed up, you lushes.

What I am talking about, though, is … THE LONG RUN. What is it about these that turn me into Kerrie circa college frat party? (Don’t hate, I met Mr. T at a fraternity. Also, hoping my mom isn’t reading this…)

Anyway, if we ever do a long run together, just be prepared for Loud-Kerrie. Obnoxious-Kerrie. Bad-joke-Kerrie. Woooo-Girl-Kerrie.

It’s okay. Don’t worry about my long-run-buddy. Zoë’s totally used to it. In fact, she gets a little loopy, too. One of her things is that she makes up words. She had some good ones this week. I’m sure she’ll share them in her post at Run, Zoë, Run.

Sunday was our 18-miler. I wasn’t nervous, but I woke up at 5 instead of 6 and then couldn’t go back to sleep. Zoë and I met at 7 a.m. (we both pulled into the parking lot at the same time) on the Cedar River Trail. The plan: 9 miles out and 9 miles back. We would run 5 minutes, walk 1. No biggie.

We set out. I sorta had to pee, but thought maybe it was pre-long-run nerves. I thought, If I still have to go at Mile 1, I’ll stop. I didn’t. But reminded myself that the last potty is a Mile 3, just in case.

The weather was typical: overcast, mid-40’s with a mist-rain. It actually felt good later in the run. I had music on low in one ear and the other ear free so I could chat with my buddy. Just after the first mile, we spotted a gaggle of Canadian geese in a parking lot across the river. You may remember that Zoë’s got a fear-thing with Nekkid Semi’s and I’ve got a fear-thing with these crazy-ass geese. After our run, she sent me this:

They are scary. For real.

The time passed quickly and we were halfway to our halfway spot before I knew it. The trail was unusually quiet and I made a crack about bikers being wimpy (sorry) because it was “raining.” Seriously, though, if it’s clear weather, we see tons of them. When it’s not, we see five (which is how many we saw yesterday — three of them in the last couple of miles).

But what we did see a lot of on Sunday: slugs. Big, giant ones; leeeeettle baby ones; and some in-between-sized ones. They were everywhere, trying to go from one side of the trail to the other. I asked Zoë, “Why do the slugs want to cross the trail?” I’m sure you can guess what her answer was, to which I laughed heartily.

It was pretty gross, though. We were trying not to step on them, but there were some parts of the asphalt trail that were covered in these small slug-looking tree seeds. You know there were some real slugs mixed in there. Ugh. Or should I say, Slugh?

We decided we needed to find the biggest slug to take a picture with. We spent the next mile or two discussing how we we would take a picture with it. And pretty soon, we were at Mile 9! We went just a teeny bit farther, so that when we finished our 18, we’d be a little over mileage in order for me to have a distance PR, just like Zoë was going to have. We stopped at 9.1 miles to fuel and stretch and shoot.

Sneaky Zoë got this candid shot. (Mel, look! I’m wearing your favorite jacket!)

My hamstrings were tight. For the life of me I could not figure out why. “Maybe it’s ’cause we just ran nine miles,” Zoë pointed out. Okay, yeah, maybe. But I don’t normally get tight hamstrings. I remembered last night, though, that we’d done yard work on Saturday for a few hours. I pulled weeds. Bent over. Squatting down, then standing up. I’m pretty sure that’s what it’s from.

Mile 1: 10:27
Mile 2: 10:40
Mile 3: 10:33
Mile 4: 10:44
Mile 5: 10:48
Mile 6: 10:26
Mile 7: 10:41
Mile 8: 10:50
Mile 9: 10:22

We got going on the second half of our run. I’d been telling Zoë that the first half was all uphill. Slightly, but it is. She believed me once we turned around. Wheeee! Downhill!

Green is elevation. Look how good we did with our run-walks (in blue). So evenly spaced!

I felt pretty good energy-wise. But, guess what? I had to pee. Fail. I told Zoë I’d just have to make it back because I was not going on the side of the trail.

It wasn’t long before we had found our slug. We both saw him (her?) at the same time. We knew we had a winner. I’d told Zoë that I’d pick up the slug as long as I was wearing my gloves, but now that there was a real slug to pick up, I was a little grossed out. Just a little. You know who was more grossed out? Zoë. Haha!

He was a lot bigger before I picked him up. He got scared and un-stretched himself.

Then I thought it would be funny to kiss the slimy thing. (This is what I’m talking about, people. Eleven miles in and I’m thinking kissing a slug is a good and fun idea.)

Not really kiss it, though. I’m not that sick.

Zoë’s turn!

Best long-run picture. Ever.

Okay, okay. We got back to running. Except it was more like running and then me trying to high-five Zoë just to gross her out with my slimy gloves. Haha!

I think we spent too much energy on that slug because afterward we were zapped. Around Mile 12, we put our tunes on louder then took turns sharing what we were listening to and/or singing lyrics. At every mile, we’d yell, “Wooooo!” I’m sure we looked like a couple of fools. Then again, we were out running 18 miles, so…

This reminds me of something T Junior said on Saturday. We were in our driveway and a teenager in jeans ran past our house down the sidewalk. T Junior yells, “Somebody’s running!” He points, waits a second, then says, “Why?”

I died.

Anyway, around Mile 15, we were passing the park where the weekly cricket match was either just starting or finishing (I have no idea). Only a 5K to go! We’d been faithful to the walk-run ratio the whole way. Well, Zoë had. I kept forgetting. Luckily, there were two of us paying attention. I wouldn’t have been able to do it by myself. Next time, I may have to set my Garmin to do it for me.

As we ran past the golf course, there was a grubby-looking golfer with a cigarette dangling from his lips searching for his ball in the rough (trees, weeds — not on the fairway for all you non-golfers out there). We’re at 15.5 miles and I say to the guy, “It’s in the lumberyard, Danny!” and then I crack up. The guy didn’t even look at me.

First of all, did I mention we were at 15.5 miles? Second, I am pretty sure I mangled the quote from Caddyshack. Third, I only said the Caddyshack quote at all because the guy totally looked straight out of the movie. Fourth, 15.5 miles.

Around 17.7 miles or so, Zoë and I agreed to run as fast as we could till we got to our cars. I’m not going to say it didn’t hurt. It did. But it hurt good. We still had energy left, thanks to the run-walk. And we still had some speed. I stopped my watch at 18.2 and we let out one last, “Woooo!”

That’s an 18 in case you can’t tell.

Mile 10: 9:58
Mile 11: 10:22
Mile 12: 9:54
Mile 13: 10:08
Mile 14: 10:19
Mile 15: 9:46
Mile 16: 10:16
Mile 17: 10:15
Mile 18: 8:55
.2: 1:37

Next up: 20 miles on May 1. May Day! (Oh boy, I can already see the blog post titles…)