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Glass City Half 2014 Race Report

April 28, 2014 //

I want to tell you all about my race enemy. She’s a bitch and I hate her. But to understand why I hate her I will have to tell you all about my half marathon yesterday.

Last year Phedre and I planned to run the Glass City Half Marathon. Long story short: It was a nightmare. Cold, rain and, frankly, I wasn’t trained well enough. I finished at 2:46 and to say I ran the race would be a liberal use of the word run. I slogged through it and the only success was not just lying down and hoping to die.

This year I started training in December. Well, I started in early November but I moved to an actual training plan starting in January. I did two 13 mile runs and both finished around 2:35. I was furious about that time. Are you telling me that I feigned running, limp walked, stopped to stretch and stopped to use a port-a-john in 2:46 but running solid I can only manage 2:35? Why was I even trying?

I went into full panic mode starting the Thursday before. I did my last taper run and just worried the 200+ miles I had used for training wasn’t enough. Saturday night I surprised Hoppie by finishing the biggest plate of fettuccini alfredo ever. I woke up Sunday morning at 4:30 and couldn’t get back to sleep.

Fast forward to me standing in my corral and kissing Hoppie goodbye. I was off! It was crowded and I wasn’t expecting that. I stuck to the side and hoped that I didn’t get in anyone’s way. The first 3 miles were painful mostly because many people didn’t line up right. A lot of the fast bunnies were trying to push forward and some of the slower folks were flowing back slowly. As I was going through mile two I heard someone behind me yelling at the crowd to be rowdier. I thought it was odd so I looked behind me and it was the 2:10 half marathon pace bunny. Oh shit. I was burning too fast. WHAT IS HAPPENING? I pulled back slightly and let the pace group pass me and I kept them in my sight for a while.

Hoppie is husband of the year because he met me on the course several times. He took some excellent pictures too so all the awards for him!

When I passed him after mile 5 I forgot to tell him I would be at the finish line sooner than I had mentioned earlier. I checked my watch for the first time since the start of the race. I was avoiding it for a reason. If I started doing the math on my pace I would bum or psych myself out. I started doing some quick math on my current pace and I was on pace for a 2:20 half…. No. No, that’s not right.

So… for 2 miles I recalculated as many times as I could before I realized I was doing the umbers right. I was on pace for 2:20. 2:15 if I started pushing. Oh shit. This is amazing.

Miles 7-10 were a blur broken up by seeing a man puke up a boot, a woman compliment my braids, and another woman fretting that she had started her marathon too fast. By Mile 11 I was starting to feel it. My hips were twinging and I was aware of my exhaustion. I kicked my heels to my ass a few times to see how my knees were feeling. Not great. Yikes. I turned the corner and there it was. The littlest hill anyone has ever seen. And I groaned so loud two guys laughed at me.

I observed quite a few people walking up it and grumbled. No! I would run up this hill and off to the finish line. I leaned forward and powered up as hard as I dared. I made it to the top of the bunny hill and the tunnel vision set in. Oh hell I had been outdone by 4 feet of elevation. I took some deep breathes and slowed way down. I cursed out loud and gave my legs the mental finger. After a half a mile I was back to my stride and back to my regular pace.

I pushed to the finish and rounded the corner to the stadium. I’M ALMOST THERE! I kicked up and power and the next thing I knew I was wrapped in a blanket and had a medal around my neck. I did it! 2:19!

I started looking for Hoppie and didn’t move. It was crowded so I figured he was headed towards me after he watched me finish. Waiting… waiting. Um… I got out my phone and called him. This is the whole conversation.

“Hey, where are you?”

“Where are you?!”

“I’m standing in the finish line corral.”

“WHAT? How long have you been there?”

“A few minutes…”

“WHAT?”

The hilarious part of the whole thing was that he had been at the finish line for 20 minutes waiting and watching. He was taking all kinds of pictures of people and somehow missed me finishing. Buuuut when we looked through the dozens of pictures he took there I was crossing the line, smile on my face!

We went to the post party and I drank the stoutest beer that ever stouted. Then down to BG for some Pollyeyes breadsticks. Best day ever!

So who is my running enemy? A smug bitch who just thinks she’s so awesome. I trained my ass off and she just jaunts into races saying things like, “Oh, my longest training run was 8 miles a few weeks ago.” I hate her and her audacity to ignore training plans and still manage a 2:13. And she wasn’t even trying. Who is she? Me at 24. What an asshole.

But don’t worry, I will give her a run for her money at the end of the May. I am going to smack the smile off her stupid face.

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A Tale About Waffles

January 14, 2014 //

I have decided that this year will be the year I tackle everything.

Oh no… she’s gonna say it… AGAIN.

I’m going to start blogging more!

LIES! Your last 17 posts are about you restarting! WTF?

Look, I know you feel lied to and that’s okay. Why? Because I say it is! That’s why!

…

Yeah, that’s right shut up! No wait, don’t leave! Let me tell you a story about a cat named Waffles. Admiral Waffles.

~*~*~*~

Last year sometime I noticed a cat running around our neighborhood. I pointed at him and declared his name to be Admiral Waffles. Naming the strays makes me feel better for some reason. Also, if I have to tell Hoppie about one of the cats I saw while on my run I don’t want to just say, “The calico one” or “The yellow one”. No, I want them to have identifiers. This may be slight more insane than I originally thought but I don’t care.

Admiral Waffles would happy bounce around the block and seemed to survive last winter with no problem. Clearly, he was just someone’s indoor/outdoor cat. It is my personal opinion that he belonged to the older lady who lived two houses down from us. Why do I think this? Because she passed away in July.

On my way home from a run I passed her house and he was on her porch crying at the door. I, like any crazy cat lady would do, called him over to our house and fed him. Just once. HAHAHAH. Yeah right. Just once meant he showed up on our porch every night at 7pm. It was amazing. Then as the weather started to turn, he would be there in the morning. One day I realized he was living under the bush next to the house.

I explained to Hoppie that I was worried he would freeze in the winter, it was slated to be a cold one. Before I left for Austin to visit my bff Brown (in early October), I told Hoppie that when I returned I planned on making him a little cat house that would go on the porch. When I returned, that house was already built by resident Husband of the Year, Hoppie. Admiral Waffles loved that box and slept in it every night.

Fast forward to a week or so ago when the polar vortex from hell swept our great nation. Monday was the worst of it. Hoppie had put a heating pad in Waffles’ box to assure that he would stay warm. All would have been fine if that asshole cat wouldn’t have run off the porch early Monday morning and never return.

I spent all of Monday searching for him. Every few hours I would throw on 3 layers of clothing and wander the neighborhood shouting, “WAFFLES! WAAAAFFLES!” (I assume no one will be stopping by our house for Halloween this year in fear of the insane person living on the corner with a craving for waffles.) He didn’t appear.

By 9:00 Monday night I was convinced of the worst. In a last futile effort I went to the garage to see if he was there. I called twice and then I heard him! He was out on the porch! I ran to him and he was pressed against the door, shaking like a leaf on a tree. I scooped him up and brought him inside. I declared, through tears, that Waffles now lived inside and Hoppie just sort of agreed. I think he was just happy I wasn’t clutching a dead cat, which is what I’m sure he thought was happening initially.

Since then Admiral Waffles has been sleeping at the top of the basement steps and sleeping a lot. He was already declawed and neutered. No fleas or kitty leukemia. Frankly he’s the greatest stray cat anyone has ever seen. The vet said he thinks Waffles is 4 years old but based on how much he plays and is kind of a ding dong, I doubt he’s older than 2. He’s just a little guy, too. Only weighs 7.4 pounds.

So now I have a house with three cats and a husband. (New working title for my biography). The other two cats aren’t sure what to make of Waffles but they aren’t attacking him which is a great start. Hopefully they will all be chasing each other around like morons soon.

So, there you ingrates! A blog. About a cat. You’re welcome, Internet!

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Mr Toad’s Wild Ride

November 4, 2013 //

NaNoWriMo is here again and I am kind of frustrated with it all. Why? Because I realized that being an adult is the worst and I don’t have time to focus on any writing for this stressed amount of time. I really do wish I could spend hours a day in November writing a novel but between work and home I am stretched pretty thin. So I am going to try to do what writing I can but there is no way I will hit any substantial mark. Maybe this will just be a boost back into my writing pass time.

I did, however, submit something to an online publication and they promptly turned me down. They claimed to not understand the premise which frustrates me to no end. I’ve basically written off (haha, get it) submitting to them ever again so the hunt is on for a humor site looking for some of my glorious words.

What have I been doing that is taking up so much of my time and brain power? I am learning to code in Python. I am actually pretty good at it and have a project at work that involves my mad skills so we will see where it takes me. Coding is a lot like writing but it involves way more proofreading and that is no bueno. Proofreading is for nerds and people who like rules. I may be a nerd but rules are for nerds! …YEAH!
Little story before I end this: On Saturday I was curled up in my blankets enjoying an hour or two of sleeping in. I drifted awake for only a moment and decided to stretch my legs. MISTAAAAAAKE! A charley horse from hell sprang to life in my left calf. I haven’t had a charley horse in well over a decade and if my next one isn’t for another decade I’ll be happy. It lasted a long time. How long? Long enough for me to google the issue on my phone while I wailed about the pain. I ended up on the Wiki page and it told me this, “One common method that is believed to treat a Charley Horse is to rapidly and repeatdly[sic] punch the site of the spasm” Nice try Wikipedia. A typo does not inspire confidence. Although had it lasted about 5 seconds longer I would have been punching myself in the calf until it gave me the money it owed me.

There is my boring story for the day. One time Wikipedia almost convinced me to punch myself in the leg. If this were the 60’s the Doors would write songs about my exploits.

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Operation Back on the Horse

October 22, 2013 //

I’m here! For how long? Who the hell knows, I have the attention span of a goldfish and I am a big fat liar. So, here we go.

I have a lot of goals right now and I need to keep them going. It is quite a bit but here it all is:

  • Get back into running seriously
  • Cooking more (and new recipes)
  • Get something published. Anything.
  • Keep along with my classes
  • Read leisurely again

I want to get back into running and get into speedwork again. I bought a bike in the spring and I want to bike even in the chilly autumn air. Hell, the winter air too! I’ll look like I have a DUI but hey, I’ll be happy.

The cooking thing is new because, to quote Clueless, “…it gives her a sense of control in a world full of chaos.” I made a homemade pizza tonight. Dough from scratch and also sauce from scratch. It was delicious, although I cracked our pizza stone… Hoppie predicted it and no I think he’ll be smug about it. Luckily, for some reason, we have a back up pizza stone!

The getting published plan involves this blog. I am going to try getting onto a schedule and structured posting. It will help with my writing and get me back in the habit of writing. I also plan on being a NaNoWriMo rebel and working on other things, but writing all month. I will try submitting things soon once the muse gets back to me.

The classes thing is self explanatory.

Reading leisurely is amazing and I miss it. I never understood why adults didn’t just read all the time. What could they possibly be doing with all the free time the obviously have? Ugh. I have Failure is Not an Option and Paddle Your Own Canoe and I will finish them soon. Ugh, I could be reading now but I’m writing this instead. Being an adult is the worst.

So, that’s what I’ve got. Wish me luck. I will see you around the blogosphere. (I’ll never use that word again. Promise.)

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