Distance: 5 miles
Pace: 8:37
Narrowly Avoided Cab Collisions: 1
Slo Jo has been having (hilarious) nightmares about race
day. I guess marathon stress affects us
all in different ways. I am not normally
a hypochondriac. My immune system is
strong (further bolstered by surviving two toddlers in daycare), I have decent
pain tolerance, and I heal quickly. So
why have I turned into a Purell-squirting, catastrophe-spotting nutcase? Because, with the marathon less than a week
away, I have taken quite literally the mantra “get to the starting line healthy
and uninjured.” Certainly
dislocating/breaking toes 30 days out in a freak gym accident didn’t help
things. I’ve learned during training that
you can have hiccups and skip a couple of runs and remain on track. But if I have a hiccup this week, it won’t be
a training run I miss. It will be the
main event! This makes me paranoid.
Friday (9 days pre-marathon), my family and I escaped to the
mountains, hopeful we’d be snowed on (but what if I slip on ice????). Daughter #1 sneezed a bunch of times on the
drive. She has the most disgusting,
wet-sounding sneeze, I’ve ever heard in my life – like the Niagra Falls of snot. She needs to learn how to stifle it a bit,
but how do you teach a seven-year old to stifle her sneeze? No worries.
Daughter #1 has mild allergies or something and we are regularly
subjected to these gross sneezes. It is
not a sign of illness. So I confirmed
she was covering her mouth and nose when she sneezed and we were all good. Then Husband #1 started coughing. Slightly more noisy and frequent than a
throat-clearing cough. He was not
covering his mouth. We were all trapped
in a tiny Prius that was simply recycling the aerosoled germs of Sneezy and
Coughy. I snapped at him to cover his
mouth for Christ’s sake and he argued that it was just a little throat
irritation. He claimed he was not
sick. I insisted he cover his mouth and
would not drop it. He finally did it
just to shut me up.
I went for my last “long” run of 10 miles on Saturday. It felt great. I did a 9:46 pace, accounting for the hills
and altitude, and started a new Jack Reacher book. I am getting a little tired of all these chicks
in their 30s-40s who do not need either makeup or bras to navigate civilized
society. But, I am inspired by bad asses
and Jack Reacher is a bad ass, if an implausible bad ass. I returned home from my run chock-full of
endorphins and optimism to find Husband #1 sprawled on the couch, sweating
profusely. In my head, I heard the slowrecord scratch sound effect that accompanies a huge plot twist in the movies,
generally when the main character suddenly realizes he’s in deep s***. Husband
#1 was legitimately sick, fever and all.
And I was trapped in small townhouse with him until I could brave a 3
hour drive home in tiny Prius airspace.
And even if I didn’t catch whatever it was from him, there would be two
more opportunities for me to get it when he gave it to each of my children (ah,
the epidemiology of the family unit). Of
course, he felt awful. And of course, it
wasn’t his fault. But to call myself
sympathetic to his plight would be a huge whopper. It was all about me. What if I got sick right before the marathon???? His timing could not be worse! He told me I could run with a cold. And, it’s true, I cannot remember the last
time I missed a workout due to illness.
There is a huge difference, however, between sniffling through 60
minutes of kickboxing and running a freakin’ marathon!
Husband #1 slept on the couch and I tried to stay clear of
the house, taking the girls for a hike.
My throat started hurting, but that is typical for me in the dry
mountain air (no snow, as it turned out).
I tried not to breathe during the 3 hour car ride home on Sunday. He was still wrecked Sunday evening, but our
home allows us to spread out more. I
popped multivitamins and told Husband #1 that the best case scenario would be
that he got whatever type of influenza the girls and I were vaccinated against
(he did not get a flu shot). Bless him, he agreed. I don’t think there has ever been another
time in my life where I’ve secretly wished, let alone vocalized a wish, that a
loved one get the flu. I guess desperate
times turn me into a monster.
To escape the den of germs and also because we had no food,
I went grocery shopping. I promptly
smashed the front of my foot on an uneven tile in the produce section. Of course it was the right foot and of course
it was my sore toes. Pain washed over me
and I managed not to drop to the ground screaming in pain. But it hurt!
And it made me feel vulnerable. I
am literally a toe-stub away from not being able to run! I bought lots of fruits and veggies and
hurried home, avoiding all the maniac drivers who might run into my car and
sideline me with injuries.
Then comes Monday morning.
My throat isn’t scratchy anymore and I am still fever-free. I had planned to make up my 8 mile tempo run
from last week (that I missed because my friend, Trail Runner, bailed due to
bad weather and I did not feel up to repeating the Albuquerque death run by
myself). Upon actually waking up, I
decided 5 would suffice. It’s Monday. Because I left the house at 6:00 am, making
it dark for my entire run, I wore a bright neon yellow shirt so I’d be visible
to groggy morning commuters. It was kind
of hard to get moving. My legs felt
heavy for the first two miles. I
remembered Slo Jo’s observations about Audiobook vs. music for faster running
and traded Jack Reacher for Pitbull.
This made me peppier (I guess I know what I’ll be listening to race
day). I started to feel good and loose
and was speeding up. Then, about 3.5
miles in, I stepped into an intersection where a little residential
cross-street met up with the main road I was running. As I stepped off the curb, a cab came racing
up in the cross street, tapped the breaks, then proceeded to hit the gas while I was
directly in front of him. I
screamed profanities and jumped out of his way.
He narrowly missed me and completed his right hand turn. I turned around, still yelling nasty things,
and saw him pull to the side a bit. He
was clearly concerned that he clipped me.
I considered running up to his window to continue my tirade, but I
ultimately didn’t want to let him ruin my pace.
Asshole.
My remaining 1.5 miles were uneventful. Then I drove the girls to school and myself
to work (which involves several miles on the freeway). Head on a swivel, evaluating potential
threats like I was driving the President through the middle of Kabul. I made
it to work unscathed (as always). Now,
please excuse me while I figure out if Amazon sells the plastic bubbles they use for people born without immune systems.
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