Snips and Snails and Puppydog Tails

Well, it doesn’t have quite the same ring as New Year’s Eve Eve, does it? But that’s what it is. We’re two days out from the Dallas Rock-n-Roll Half Marathon – my first half and Bryan’s fourth. To say I’m nervous would be quite an understatement. My training has been in the toilet lately – time and initiative have definitely been lacking. I’ve not made it over 9 miles on a training run, and when I tried for the all-important 10-miler last Sunday, I failed miserably. I don’t just mean I had to walk some of it or that I couldn’t quite make it to 10 miles. I mean I completely melted down. Had to start walking after 1 mile, never got picked back up to a jog, gave up sometime past mile 2 and walked back to the house. Bryan knew I was struggling, so he had loaded Sam and some struggling-runner aides (cooler bag with cold rags, etc.) and was coming to meet me. He tried to get me to go with him, to go even just around the block. This resulted in me dissolving into tears, and the three of us eventually slogged around the block (so I guess technically I was on my feet for just over 3 miles that day), me in tears the whole way. I’ve made it out to run only once since then, a very slow 3 miles on Wednesday evening.

I simply don’t feel prepared for this race. I’m trying to look at it as just a run; to enjoy the scenery – it’s an area I’ve never run before; to remember that, even if I have to walk a lot of it, and even if it’s much slower than I originally set my goal, I’ll still be accomplishing something that not very many people accomplish.

————————————->Note – several hours have passed since I started this post, and we’ve been to and come back from the expo<—————————————-

Sneaker bling, so at least my feet will look good at the race!

I wish I could say my perspective or attitude has changed in the last few hours. The expo was pretty cool, and we got some neat stuff. We even got to meet Dan and Jackie, the mother/son (orange) team from the 2008 season of Biggest Loser (they still look great, btw, and are doing 500 miles this year in 18 races with Team Future to raise money for the ROL Youth Foundation). I got some cute bling for my sneakers from Beecause Charms. (I do plan to get a 13.1 charm AFTER I actually complete the race. I’m just a tad superstitious that way.)

But, while that was neat and fun, and even sort of inspiring, I still just feel yuck about the race itself. I got in another slow 2.5 miles this evening, with Sam and BOB. My legs still felt dead-dead-dead, though I suppose it was a vast improvement over Sunday’s failure and maybe slightly better than Wednesday. I told Bryan earlier this week (or was it late last?) that I didn’t want to email any friends or family the race route because, really, nobody needs to come out to watch me crash and burn. Not to mention that I’m likely to not be a nice person (ask Bryan, I really can get mean when I run), and again, nobody needs to witness that.

I seem to still be in a bit of denial about it, too. I’ve yet to put together a playlist for the race, or decide if I’m running with or without a fuel belt (though the fact that only aid stations 2, 4, and 6 will have cytomax has me leaning toward running with the belt). I have, at least, figured out what I’m wearing, partly thanks to the course itself. Between miles 6 and 8 (at least on the map) we’ll be running by SMU. So, of course, I’ll be wearing my TCU running shirt and my frogalicious purple Sauconys with my TCU sneaker bling, a black running skirt, and probably my TCU running hat that’s way nasty/salty/sweaty. GO FROGS!

So, folks, thanks for all the encouragement; I hope you don’t feel I’ve wasted your time giving it when I feel so lousy and ill-prepared (with, really, no one to blame but myself). If you don’t see headlines about runner10260 collapsing dead on the course, I’ll post a race report at some point next week. I will happily still accept advice from those of you who’ve done this (the distance, the race, or the ill-preparing for a race – it’s all game).