18 Miles & a Car Break-in

This weekend certainly has been a special one. And by special, yes, I meant that it needed a helmet.

I woke up on Saturday, ready to run. I anxiously checked the weather and briefly went outside to get the score...and I got goose-bumps. Goose-bumps = Good running weather for me. I ate breakfast, Cliff Bar of course, drank a half liter of water, and watched the trailer for Spirit of Marathon. Again. I was, in essence, prepared to run my 18 miles. For CES's big mileage runs (16 plus miles), we start at Montrose beach, which I drive to, because it's just easier. So I walked out my back door at 5:30 AM to switch cars. My roommate was at her boyfriend's apartment.

And I noticed something funny about my car. The doors were slightly open. It didn't occur to me right away that someone broke into it. But I knew the battery would be dead, and I had no idea how long it had been that way. The last time I had driven my car was last Thursday. I started to get a little upset. Then I saw that the glove compartment was open and all of its contents were all over my car. It was a break in.

I guess I was lucky because the windows weren't broken, but the locks had been jammed.

Well I flipped out and started sobbing. You know how when bad things happen and you can only focus on one non-related thing? Well that non-related thing was my 18 mile run in less than an hour. And I had promised to pick up some of my running compatriots. Luckily, I had access to my roommates car keys and borrowed her car to get to my run. Because, the only thing I could focus on was...my long run.

So, I ran. And I ran those 18 miles with a lot of guts I must say. I ended up having to walk for about 2 minutes due to asthma related shit, but other than that, I felt like I had a good, solid 18 mile long run. Parts of the run were better than others. There was a girl running with our pace group that I think normally runs with the 10:00 milers. I don't know her and I don't think I want to, because all she did was bitch about how slow we were going, and why were we taking water breaks, and that the 11 minute milers would probably be passing us soon.

You know...if you're so fucking fast, go run with the faster people and quit bitching! Sorry, but we're doing a long run, which means long, slow distance. AND we're doing a 10:30 pace, so NO ONE is breaking any land speed records here. Terrible, just terrible. Corey, one of my buddies, put her in her place on the way back.

I was a little worried about my right instep, because it was soooooo sore for about the last mile. Maybe it was the shoes? It felt fine today, as did the rest of my body, so that's good. Overall, I felt like I had a good run. Was it as successful as I had hoped? Not really...I would have preferred to have not walked at all, but in the end, you do what you have to do to get through the run, and I wasn't about to try and kill myself for a long run. I plan on saving THAT for the marathon. Which, by the way, is only 34 days away.

So this week heralds another half-marathon, The Banco Popular Chicago Half-Marathon. This is supposed to be a cutback week, so I plan on running this race at a straight 10:30 for the entire distance. I mean, I'm guessing I'll speed up a bit for the last mile, but I really want to see how I'll feel at the end of the race. Whether or not that pace will have felt good for 13.1 miles. We shall see how it goes!

So...in the end, nothing was taken from my car. They probably saw my iPod car adaptor and thought I might have had something valuable in the car. I didn't, unless you consider a AAA emergency kit valuable (and they didn't). When I was checking my car after the run, I was overcome with rage. I wanted to start yelling. I wanted to say "If you're out there, and you're listening...try this again and you'd better be wearing a cup." But I'm thankful that I'm okay, with only a diminished sense of personal security.