The IRON wars, part 11326

The original intent of this blog was to talk about celiac and iron-related issues, but up until now I've only written about that stuff in passing. Why? The truth is, that stuff is BORING. It’s boring to write about, it’s boring to think about, and unless you’re suffering from the same thing, it’s boring to read about.

And it's depressing. I don't want to read about it anymore, much less write about it. I just want it to go away.

And beyond the general downer-ness, I’ve come to realize that the iron situation for me is very specific to my own issues, and thus probably not particularly relevant to most people. I've gotten to the point where whenever I see an article about iron and running, I try to keep myself from reading it. I find them to either be inaccurate (and sometimes frighteningly misleading, despite being written by people with impressive credentials behind their name) or insulting to my experiences. Seriously, if I see one more thing telling me I just need to drink orange juice with my iron supplements…  

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure those articles are helpful for a lot of people (since everyone has to start with the basic stuff first), they're just not particularly relevant for me. My body is like, "Orange juice?! Hahahahah, yeah, that'll totally change everything." My body does not give a shit what I chase iron supplements with. We’re not absorbing.

So why am I writing about this now, when I can’t even talk to my own family about it without their eyes glazing over?

A couple of reasons:

1. While I’ve never found much of anything that speaks to my specifics, it would be pretty egotistical of me to think that there isn’t a single other person out there having similar problems, so maybe there is someone who could benefit from reading about my travails.  
2. I realized recently that my first iron issues were diagnosed in late 2006, and despite many efforts, many doctors of many different types, and many approaches, it's been 8 YEARS and I still don’t have the answer.

I will now attempt to summarize my iron history of the past 8 years in 5 sentences or less.

In late 2006, after suffering from fatigue for practically forever, I finally went to a doctor and found out I was ridiculously anemic. Vast amounts of every kind of oral supplement known to man, combined with a celiac diagnosis and corresponding removal of gluten from my diet, only pushed my iron up a little bit. In 2009, I finally convinced a (different) doctor to give me IV iron and it was like I was born again. Awesomeness followed, but only in cycles, because the thing about IV iron is that you get it, then you use it, and then you need to get it again. 

And because I’m me, I have a chart to back this up.

What you see here is 8 years of ferritin test results. The vertical lines indicate when I got IV iron. There's a little glitch in the chart just to the left of center, where I'm missing some data points, but I think you get the picture, right? 

IV iron causes my ferritin to go through the roof, and then it starts dropping. That's not particularly surprising. The thing that's important to note is the slope of the line when ferritin starts dropping. As we move along the chart to the right, the line is getting steeper, meaning ferritin is dropping faster. I used to get my iron and be good for a year, but this last time I went from 141 to 55 in less than 6 months. And part of that time I was on a break followed by a slow build (not running 85 miles a week, in other words). 

Here's the other thing: it used to be that getting my IV iron was like uppers for running. I'd go from struggling to being able to train hard again within a few weeks. It was like night and day. This last time, however, the change was barely significant. 

Oh, and I guess there's one other thing: I seem to be hitting the fatigue zone at higher and higher ferritin levels. I start feeling it when my ferritin is in the 60s now, which a lot of people would tell you is plenty high. 

My theory on this is that the body/brain feels the rate of change just as much, if not more, than the actual ferritin level. I believe the central governor model would back me up on this.

Of course, I'm not a doctor, nor a physiologist, nor any other kind of expert other than an expert (well, kind of) on my own self, so I am not going to try to say that I know exactly what kind of mechanism is at work here. All I'm really saying is this: IV iron is not working anymore.

It has always bothered me that we haven't been able to fix (or properly identify the cause of) the exact nature of the real problem (aka: why can't I get iron from food like a normal person?), but as long as I had a solution for the symptoms, I could live with it. 

Now I no longer have a solution.

So what next?

Well, I'm back to trying to fix the problem from the inside out, but I'm using TCM instead of western medicine. Actually, western medicine never even really tried to fix me from the inside out. None of the western medicine doctors I saw wanted to jump in and try to figure out what was actually going on. Maybe that's partly my fault for not insisting on it more, but I've done quite a bit of insisting along the way as it is. Yes, that's right, I am the obnoxious patient who thinks they know more than the doctor. But, in my defense, I wasn't that person in the beginning, and I have become that way for a reason!

Anyway, I feel more hopeful about this approach than I have in a while. When I have an appointment, my TCM doctor listens to me closely about what seems to be getting better or worse and makes adjustments accordingly. She asks pertinent questions, we discuss things, and she doesn't have 8 patients scheduled every hour. But I also recognize that things might get worse before they get better. And that the things we're doing might not work, or might not work enough. I may find myself, three months from now, begging my OHSU doctor for venofer again. We'll see. I hope not. Besides the fact that venofer no longer seems to be working, it just doesn't seem like a good long term solution. (And I really do have to beg for it.)

Finally, because I've kind of glossed over the last 8 years of iron ups and downs, I'd like to at least point out a couple of the things I've learned along the way. 

• You are the boss of your own body. Sure, doctors know lots of things that you and I don't, and they can obviously be very helpful, but they're just human beings like us. Don't be afraid to speak up, to question, to suggest, and to get yourself a new damn doctor if you aren't satisfied that the one you have is hearing what you tell them. 
• Ferritin is just a marker of stored iron. It is not your actual stored iron, and iron is not the only thing that changes the number. Ferritin testing can be very helpful (and some of us love the numbers!!), but it has to go hand in hand with your own history, and more importantly, how you actually feel. A ferritin of 60 might be totally kick ass for one person, or, perhaps more importantly, if a person is at 60 without taking supplements, but it happens to suck ass for this person. It's not quite as simple as reading a gas gauge, in other words.

If there's one good thing about the low points of running, it's how awesome it feels when they end. 
I'm looking forward to the end of this particular valley. 

Here you go, have yourself a race - Bridge of the Goddess race report

Sometimes life hands you what you need even when you don't know what that is.

I certainly didn't think the race this morning was going to be one of those times when I found myself needing to switch race distances at packet pickup (from the half down to the 10k). I was wondering if I should just skip the race entirely. Hood to Coast was a blast, but it beat me up pretty badly, and it's been a few pretty rough running weeks since then. I've been fighting off an injury, I just found out my iron has been plummeting again, and frankly my race fitness is laughable. Despite my best efforts, it just hasn't been a good running year.

But dang it, I paid $90 to register for this race, and they were being ridiculously kind in offering the option to change race distances at the last minute, so in the end I decided to cut the distance, suck it up and just show up. I get humbled all the time in running, after all, and I'm not too proud to show up and get my ass handed to me (take note Mo Farah). I guess it just seemed important to my psyche to be out in the racing world this morning.

The race I'm talking about is a new one: the Bridge of the Goddess Half marathon and 10k. For those not from around here, the Bridge of the Gods is a bridge across the Columbia River. This race starts up on the bridge and then does an out and back on the Old Historic Columbia River Highway, which is a paved bike path that used to be a road in olden times, before finishing up down in Marine Park in Cascade Locks.
There is not a single flat spot on the entire course. The half marathon even has a couple of flights of stairs! Definitely not a PR course, and therefore not typically on the Andi Camp-approved race list. Usually I avoid "challenging" courses like the plague-on-prs that they are. But apparently a few months ago it seemed like a good idea to sign up for this race, and so there I was.

It was a first year race, but it was run by people with tons of experience, so in general, it went pretty smoothly. There were a few hiccups, specifics coming up, but they were handled very promptly and professionally, with no attitude (ahem, certain other race companies in town...).

There was another new race earlier this year, on almost the exact same course, called the Bridge of the Gods half marathon. It started on the Washington side of the bridge, and ran all the way across it. Apparently they supplied shuttle buses to get across the bridge before the start. (Really? The bridge isn't that long. Do people about to run 13.1 miles really need vehicular transport across a bridge?) The Goddess race, however, started at the front of the Oregon side of the bridge. They traded the scenery of getting to run across the bridge for not having to run across the steel grating of the bridge deck. I think it was a good swap, as the grating under race flats felt pretty awful. I walked up there thinking I might finish my warmup on the bridge itself, but after about three steps I turned around and went back to the pavement.

The other down side of the start location was that you have to walk across the start line to get behind it. And, people being people, there were still quite a few of them walking up to the start when the start time rolled around. They delayed the start a few minutes to get the bulk of them up there, but eventually they had to get going and just asked the remaining people to get out of the way of the oncoming runners. Not a big deal, and not much you can do about it.

Both races started together and followed the same course until the 10k turnaround. Very old school.

Since I was running the shorter distance, and the race was almost entirely women, I found myself near to the front right off the bat. There was a long downhill to start, so I focused on not getting carried away. One woman went to the lead at a pretty good clip, and I found myself running with another woman not too far behind. A quick check on my watch and I thought I might be out a little quick, so I relaxed a little and let the woman I was with go on into second place.

The downhill turned to uphill and the lead woman backed off a bit. I watched as the second place woman comfortably passed into the lead. I stayed calm in third and watched things play out, knowing that if I was going to do anything notable in this race, I would need to wait until the second half.

That first uphill was tiring, but tolerable. When we crested it and started down, I made a note of the fact that the 4 mile marker for the return trip was there on the crest. That note was me preparing to be positive on the way back: downhill starts at mile 4.
But here, at mile 2, we had started descending the outgoing side. We descended for a long time. A long ass time. The gap to the two women in front of me was holding steady, but all I could think was that I was going to have to turn around and run back up this hill that kept going and going and going.

Eventually the downhill lessened and it flattened just long enough to turn a corner and start climbing again. I knew we had to be nearing the turnaround, and sure enough, a couple of minutes later I saw the leader coming back at me. At that point I was probably only 10 or 15 seconds behind her, and the turnaround sign was there in an instant. It was located directly at the bottom of the aforementioned stairs, and as I saw it I realized I had never seen the second place woman coming back at me. I glanced upwards just in time to see the back of her shoes disappearing up the stairs and out of view.

Uh, wow. Either she was crazy fit or she was going to have a pretty awful second half of the race. I had to wonder...  surely she knew what the course was like, right?

I didn't ponder it for too long, though, because now I was in second place instead of third! Hooray for me!

I didn't know the woman leading the race, but we had exchanged a couple of sentences in the first few minutes of the race, and I was pretty sure she was not going to come back to me. I was also pretty sure that if I did get closer to her, she had another level she could summon without too much trouble. That was just a hunch, but you get a feel for these kinds of things when you've been racing a while.

Still, though, a race is a race, so I tried to keep my eyes on her back where the course allowed, to maintain and/or shrink the gap, just in case.

We were passing the runners heading out and they were cheering very enthusiastically. I also got a couple of high fives and some "she's not that far ahead, go get her!". On the short downhill from the turnaround, I was able to smile back and say thanks a few times, but all too quickly we started ascending that nasty long hill up to the 4 mile mark. My small smiles quickly turned to grimaces, although the cheering continued and was still very helpful. I tried to smile back with my eyes because my mouth couldn't get there.

That hill went on forever, and I could feel myself slowing and struggling, and hear my breathing getting to freight-train status. Things were bad. Life was instantly awful. What in tarnation was I doing out here anyway? Racing is stupid!

The bulk of the race was now going by in the other direction and they were a welcome distraction. I try never to look behind myself in a race, but as the hill wore on, I did listen to see if I could hear another round of cheers going up for someone close behind me. I heard nothing, and then got irritated with myself and tried to re-focus my brain on what was going on in front of me. The race is always in front of you. Even if you're in first place, the race is in front of you.

Finally that blessed 4 mile marker appeared, and a few seconds later we were descending again. I knew there was at least one more small to medium uphill coming up, but it was nothing compared to what we'd just run up.

Running downhill felt so good. A couple of minutes later I was no longer sounding like a freight train. All of a sudden life didn't seem so bad. In fact it seemed good! Racing is actually pretty great, huh? I mean, yes, technically I was now starting to feel my injured areas kicking up a fuss, but I knew they would hold. I was mostly being limited by my fitness (as opposed to injury) and that's all you can really ask for.

Mile 5 came up and with it some more uphill. Rounding a bend, a straightaway unfurled itself in front of me and I got a quick glance of the race leader up ahead. I wasn't going to catch her, but it helped to know that she hadn't put another half mile on me going up that long hill.

I struggled up the last hill as the bike path ended and tossed us onto the sidewalk near where we'd come down off the bridge at the start, and then...   and then...  well, no one was there to tell me where to go so I just kept running straight through town on the sidewalk. Right away I saw a race photographer, so I figured I was going the right way, but I could no longer see the woman in front of me. And I was running down the hill into town on a sidewalk with no race markings, startling the handful of pedestrians that was out and about. I asked one of them if another runner had come through here. He had to ponder it, but then he said he had seen someone else on the other side of the street. I looked over there and didn't see anyone, but I also didn't know where else to go, so I kept running on the sidewalk.

Now I was getting irritated. I was in the last half mile of a 10k and I didn't know if I was going the right way. I thought to myself, if I'm off course and I have to turn around and run back up this blasted hill, I'm going to punch someone in the face.
After dodging a few more sidewalk pedestrians, I looked up and saw the race leader making a left down a street. I saw some orange cones. Surely that had to be it. A guy was standing in the intersection, looking at me. Just standing there, looking at me as I approached. Is this the course? I yelled out. Then he raised his arm and pointed me down the road to the left.

The next 100 meters or so was clearly marked by a rope line, and then as I rounded the last corner, a volunteer said: through those cones and then finish under the arch. I ran through the cones (why were there three cones in a line across the path??), looked up and saw the arch across a grass field and made a beeline for it. There was some sort of playground thing in my path, which seemed odd. Why am I running this weird line across a field? I thought to myself.

About halfway to the arch, some people started yelling at me and pointing to my left. I looked over and there was one of those temporary blue mesh fence lines leading to the finish chute. (By the way, this line of fencing had no geometrical relation to the line you were on when running through the aforementioned three cones.)
I started angling towards the fence as I was running towards the arch and then it dawned on me that I was supposed to be on the other side of it. Maybe because I could finally understand what they were yelling to me (the wind was hella loud so it was hard to hear anything else) or maybe it was the fact that I was now close enough to see that there was a fence blocking the finish line. I yelled out to them, "Seriously?!?!?", backtracked a few strides and leaped over one of the low spots in the fence before hanging a hard right to charge down those last few meters.

I crossed the finish line and the announcer was not able to identify me (because I had changed races the day before and they'd given me a new bib). As soon as he stopped talking, I yelled over to him that there was no one up at the end of the bike path telling people where to go. I'm sure my tone of voice made me sound like an asshole, but I was pretty pissed off right in that moment. Sure, I wasn't going to set a PR on that course, but the last half mile of a race you should be leaving your guts on the course, not trying to figure out where to go. Tired and confused = angry. Of course, it wasn't really that big of a deal, and these folks are pros, so they started trying to get a volunteer up there immediately. And within five or ten minutes they had removed the three ineffective orange cones near the finish straight and set up a whole line of them leading people right along the magic blue fencing.

I'm not generally that big into finish area amenities, but Marine Park is a pretty terrific place to hang around in after a race. Right on the Columbia river, lots of grass space, and just plain pretty to look at.

Normally that would be it for my race report, but this time I have to mention the awards ceremony.
When they announced the top 3 for the overall 10k, they didn't call my name. They called out the 4th place woman (saying she was in third), then the 3rd place woman (saying she was in 2nd), skipped me, and then announced the winner (also not me, since I obviously didn't win). I was like, uh...  what? is this some weird thing where they take me out of the overall results because I'm over 40 now? Sometimes they take the overall winners out of the masters but I've never heard of them doing it the other way around. Why would you? It doesn't make any sense. So I went up to the people doing the awards and politely (no really, I was super polite) told them that I had gotten 2nd overall and had been missed in the results. The race director was standing right there and she recognized me because she had talked to the winner and me right after we finished, and she said, oh, we couldn't find you. Your information wasn't linked to your chip in the computer. We paged you from the finish line, but we couldn't find you.

To my credit, I did not point out how ridiculous this sounds. Yes, you didn't know my name, but you knew that I was the second finisher, and you knew that you didn't have my name in your computer, so when you couldn't find me to get my name, you just decided to move the people below me up? Why not just announce my bib number at the awards and say hey, there was a mixup and we don't have your name, please come up and fill us in.
Again to their credit, they fixed it up right quick, with all niceness and no attitude towards me. They were really very nice. Mixups happen, you let people know, and things get fixed. And I can understand that allowing people to switch race distances, which they were generous about doing, creates considerably more work for them. I'd hate for my experience to deter them from offering that feature in the future.

And speaking of awards, now that I'm officially a master, I decided to form an opinion about the whole "double dipping" thing that people talk about in regards to overall awards coinciding with masters awards. I've never cared that much either way. While I appreciate a nice award as much as the next person, I don't choose races based on the awards. And we all know that what place you get is largely a function of who shows up to any given race. There's always someone faster than you out there somewhere.
But it is kind of an interesting question. If you don't allow double dipping, what's "better", 1st place masters, or 2nd overall?

So while I was driving the 45 minutes back to Portland, I gave it some thought. I put myself on both sides of the coin and I've come to the conclusion that I'm in favor of double dipping for overall and masters overall (but definitely not for regular age group awards). It's easy to suggest that I came to this conclusion because it would sometimes benefit me (like possibly today, because if my chip had been in the computer they would have seen that I was 40, and thus the first master), but that's not what swayed me. It was actually the opposite thing that swayed me. If I came in 4th place overall, but got beat by someone else over 40, and was then announced as the masters winner, I would feel like it was a sham. The first place master is the first person over 40 who crosses the line. Period. If they also happen to be one of the overall winners, then hell yes, more power to them. Give them their two awards! Because if I was that 2nd place master picking up the masters "win" due to a technicality, I would feel like I was cheating. I would know that I was NOT the first place master.

Oh, I almost forgot: what was it that I unknowingly needed that life handed to me today?

It turns out that I needed to race. I didn't need to win, I didn't need to run a pr, I just needed to get out there and RACE. I needed to put on my shiny new Oiselle singlet, lace up my no-fooling-around racing flats, and fucking race. Despite any course and results hassles, I was wearing a big, fat smile inside my chest all morning. It was still there when I left and still there when I got home.

Sometimes you just need to race.

Newport marathon un-race report, the unfortunate sequel to the pre-race report

Sometimes you go into a marathon expecting great things. Your training went great, you feel awesome, the weather is perfect, and you can feel it in your toes that you are going to kick some ass.
Sometimes you're cautiously optimistic.
Sometimes you get sick or injured and you throw in the towel during training and don't even show up for the race.

And sometimes you show up just needing to run the damn race, even when you know that the best possible outcome will still be slightly disappointing.

Yesterday's Newport marathon unfortunately fell into the last category for me.
Even more unfortunately, my race ended like this:

DNF.

Ugh. Are there any uglier letters to a runner?
No one likes a DNS either, but once you physically step across that start line, there's an implied contract between you and yourself that you will also cross the corresponding finish line. That's a tough contract to break.

Tough enough that between the wheels falling off at 18 miles and finally dropping out at 22 miles, I let two shuttle buses pass me by, while I doggedly tried to pull myself back together. I mean, who drops out of a marathon at 22 miles?? It''s only 4 more miles, just finish the damn thing!! And I came very close to letting that third shuttle bus pass me by. Very very close.

But let me back up.

As I left the hotel on race morning to jog down to the start, the only specific thing wrong was that I was hungry. I had just eaten a big bowl of oatmeal about an hour earlier, so that was weird, but it's just nerves, right? And the start was less than an hour away, so what was I going to do, eat another bowl of oatmeal? Just nerves, I thought. Everything's fine. Relax.

The first few miles (not flat, by the way, Newport marathon race director) went by. The hills and the 837 turns made it a little tricky to relax, but I knew things would settle down. Miles 4 through the turnaround (at 15.5) and back to the finish were on one road along the bay. That's where I planned to settle in. I wanted to stay conservative on the way out and try to negative split the way back.

There's a small uphill as you pass by the finish line, and then a long downhill on the other side. For those following along at home, yes, that means a long uphill on the return trip, conveniently located at mile 25 of a marathon. (Again, note to race director: hills are not flat.)

I didn't know exactly how many total women were in front of me as we crested that hill passing by the finish line, but there were 3 that I could see: 2 directly in front of me and one maybe 1/4 mile up the road. There was also a handful of guys and the 3:05 pace group a little ways beyond. Ok, I thought. I will get comfortable, run steady low 7 pace, and everyone that I'm seeing right now will come back to me.

That is actually how things went for a while. I ran steady, I passed two women and some of the guys, and gained a little bit on the next woman. I fell into about a 7:05 pace, so the gap to the pace group remained pretty constant.

Miles 4 through 13 should have been fine but they weren't. I couldn't put my finger on what was wrong with me, but something was off. Breathing was fine, legs were not awesome but were ok...  hmmm...  was it just the annoyance factor?

Wait, annoyance? where is that coming from?, you might be wondering.

I've run lots of small road races, but I've never run a small marathon before. Newport only allows 1000 people in the marathon. There are some great things about small marathons, like no corrals, less money, small town friendliness, etc etc. If there's a drawback, it should be small spectator crowds and fewer people to run with, right? Well, I do 99% of my training alone, so I was not at all concerned about running alone, in fact, I expected it. I have no problem running alone.

Unfortunately I was not running alone. I found myself trapped in a small group of dudes whose main purpose in life seemed to be to annoy me. In hindsight, it may have been mostly just one of the dudes, but I was trying to exist in my own little world as much as possible, and the annoyances were relentless, so it seemed like a small army of dudes.

While I wouldn't want to tell anyone else how they should run their race, here are some things that I'd like to think would be universally agreed upon as bad:
Breathing heavily 4 miles into a marathon. And I mean heavily heavily. Like I said, far be it from me to question your fitness in a race I didn't even finish, but if you sound like you're running a 1500 when there's still over 20 miles left to run, it might be a good idea to back off a wee bit. There's plenty of time for heavy breathing later.
Surging like you're doing a fartlek workout. I suppose an occasional surge can be a good thing for some people, like maybe you want to catch up to a group and tuck in with them, or maybe you're trying to get yourself out of an uncomfortable pace rut, but if you're needing to charge forward every 5 minutes to catch back up with the same people, it's possible you shouldn't be running that fast early in a marathon.
Drafting behind someone like it's a bike race. Tucking in with a group is one thing. Veering dramatically around the road to run directly on someone's heels is not only rude, it's a waste of energy. And in our case it was stupid: if anything, there was a tailwind in the direction we were running.

Now, combine those things into one person, and you have the annoying dude running near me while I was trying to find my rhythm. I actually wanted to slow down just a teeny tiny bit until I felt a little more relaxed, but there was no way I was going to relax with that guy around me. In fact, when I was watching him tail this other guy around the road right in front of me, it was all I could do not to yell at him to run his own race. Anyone reading this who knows me is probably quite surprised that I did not yell at him. But I was trying to find my zen place. Let it go, Andi, I thought, it's not important.

I ran through all of the aid stations, and that finally helped me put some space on the guy. I don't usually take any food or drink the first half of the race anyway, so I wasn't worried about it.

But back to that feeling of unease: it hadn't gone away. Annoying guy might have distracted me from it for a little while, but in between distractions, I was fighting some serious negativity. Contemplating dropping out of a 26 mile race when you're less than 10 miles in is not a good thing. Thus began the bargaining.

Every runner knows about bargaining with yourself. It's a very effective tool sometimes. It's where you tell yourself: just make it to (insert artificial finish line here), and then you can stop. And then once you get there, you replace it with a new artificial finish line. And so on until the finish.

I started out with: just get to the half marathon turn around (mile 8.7), so you can see how many people in front of you were only running the half (very few, as it turned out). Then it was: just get past the 13 mile mark, because then you'll start to see the leaders (hopefully my friend Kevin) coming back at you and that will be inspiring, plus then you can count the women in front of you and know what place you're in (Kevin was in second place, looking good, the lead women were looking good, and I was in 6th place). When that started to wear off, it was: just get to the turnaround, everything will seem better when you're on the way back (uh, no it won't).

By the way, my pace had not slowed dramatically prior to the turnaround. I had been been steady in the low 7s through 10 or 11 miles, and then had only slight slowing (~10s per mile) over the next few miles. That might have been a bummer on a day when I was really going for it, but to me on this day, it wasn't that bad. I wasn't crashing, I told myself, I was just going to be finishing a little slower than planned. Or maybe it was just a bad patch and I'd pick it up again later.

Coming back from the turnaround, however, did not give me the boost I'd hoped for. Sure, it was great in some ways. Sharing encouragement with the runners coming the other way is always good for a lift. Seeing my friend Carin and high-fiving my Oiselle teammates Laurel and Anne was easily the best part of the run. As my slow down continued, I kept smiling at the oncoming runners as long as I could. I was still running, at least, right?

But then I wasn't running. At first, it was just a few steps walking through an aid station. Sometimes it's worth a few walking steps just to get a decent amount of water in your mouth and actually down your throat.
That was around 17 miles.
I'm a realist, and I knew the ship was sinking fast. But I'm not too proud to finish a disappointing marathon, I've done it many times before, and I knew I wanted to finish this one. I pictured myself crossing the finish line and I knew it would feel better to finish, no matter what the clock said.
So I told myself I'd just run from aid station to aid station. They're two miles apart. Run two miles to the next one, walk through it, and repeat. Next thing you know, you'll be done.

I didn't make it to the next aid station before I was walking again. My attention was mainly focused on moving forward, and admittedly a person's brain gets a little scrambled when in distress, but I couldn't really make heads or tails of what was going on with my body. I had been mentally prepared to be hampered by my injuries, but that wasn't the problem. I felt completely empty inside, like I had no internal organs and my torso was a big empty vacuum of space.

I'd walk for a few minutes, and then I'd say to myself, just start running. Don't think, just run.
I'd start running, and for a few minutes, I'd think, see? this isn't so bad. We can do this.

A few minutes later I'd find myself fighting to keep going. And then I'd be walking again.

I might have kept on with this cycle for longer, but weird "other" pains had started cropping up. Pains that had nothing to do with my real injuries, but were more likely a result of the weird form that accompanies slow, forced running. Right plantar, left knee, right plantar again....  sigh.

As I walked on, I struggled with the decision of whether to keep at it or call it a day. No one wants to be a quitter. We all want to be the person that sucks it up and finishes no matter what.
And it's hard not to feel guilty. A woman ran by just after 20 miles and she was working hard. She still had 6 miles to go, and she was working really hard, but she was doing it. She wasn't giving up. I knew that she would finish the race. And I looked at myself. I didn't look or sound like that. I wasn't working as hard as that woman was. I was just walking. Maybe I was just being a baby and feeling sorry for myself.

Maybe.

But pride is a tricky thing. It can keep you working at something when things get tough, and it can also keep you working at something past the point where you should just let it go.

So when I heard that third shuttle coming up behind me, I looked back at it once, twice, and then finally, at the very last possible second, I flagged the driver. He pulled over instantly and I got on. The spectators on the bus were ridiculously nice to me. One lady kept offering me stuff (food, water). Another said, well, honey, 22 miles is pretty darn good.

I smiled as best I could, shook them off, and watched as the shuttle bus drove by the people still running their marathons. They were going to cross the finish line and I was not. Not this time, anyway. I let a few tears roll down my face, but only a few. Dropping out was not an easy decision to make, but I'd made it. It was done.

Now I just had to walk around behind (not across) the finish line to collect Paul, who I spotted standing there, peering anxiously at the clock as it spilled over into the 3:06's and out the finish chute and up the hill, trying not to look worried, wondering where the hell I was, but I could do that.
The day was young, I realized, and it was time to put the race behind us and go put our feet in the ocean.

Newport marathon, the pre-race report

This is what happens when training is going well:
The closer I get to race day, the more I hunker down. I put on my calm face. When someone asks, "how fast do you think you'll run?", I shrug, make non-committal noises. Because you never know what will happen on race day. The best training in the world can't make up for running like an idiot the first half, or 95 degree temperatures, or catching a bug from some jerk in your office who thinks they're too important to miss a day of work when they're sick, your cat dying the week before the race, food poisoning, whatever, you name it. I don't take anything for granted. The swagger I might possibly have been walking around with earlier in the season after nailing certain workouts and running prs in my tune up races slowly disappears. When it comes to marathons, I like my training to be blanketed with a healthy dose of fear and humility.

But, alas, that's not where I am right now.

This time, training has decidedly not been going well. In fact, this training cycle feels like it has been SIX YEARS long (please god, let it end!).
I have no awesome workouts to look back on for confidence building, just mediocre piled on top of barely passable piled on top of geez-am-I-in-the-wrong-sport??
My only tuneup race was a half marathon during which I tried and tried and tried and almost managed to run my full marathon pr pace. Almost.
In what was supposed to be the heart of my training cycle, I had a string of weeks containing at least one day where I came home from work and simply did not go running. What?!? Yes, you read that right. That thing I always do every day after work, that thing I like to do every day after work? I just didn't do it.

Why? you might be wondering.
Well, it's a long, uninteresting story that lucky for you I don't feel like telling.
You know the drill: injury taking forever to heal, low iron, blah blah blah. The whys are many and not that important anymore....  things just never clicked.

And, to add insult to injury: last week, when I finally had a string of several halfway decent workouts and was getting into a good headspace for the last few weeks of training...  I picked up a cold.
A freaking cold. Better than the norovirus, no doubt, but still, can a girl catch a break??

It probably goes without saying, but I'm not needing to cast a very wide net to get that healthy dose of fear and humility I was talking about earlier. Nope, my cup runneth over with fear and humility.

So, instead of my usual playing-it-down mental exercise, I find myself grasping for positives.
As my friend LT put it, it's time to talk myself up.

Ok, I may not have had 95 mile weeks, holy-cow-did-I-just-run-that? workouts and yawn-another pr-yawn races, but here is what did go well:

• I had the highest total mileage for a marathon training cycle I've ever had (almost 1500 miles)
• I ran long runs of at least 2 hours for 15 of the last 17 weeks
• the other two weekends? one I ran a half marathon, and the other was about an hour and 40 minutes running in 3-6 inches of snow (we don't own shovels in Portland because it only snows once every five years)
• just when I was ready to throw in the towel, I had 3 workouts in a row that said to me: hey, it's at least possible you can run within five minutes of your pr, and that's really not that bad is it?
• yesterday I ran my last real workout, and...  I ran it too fast. Wait, what?! There has not been a single incident of me running too fast in the past six months (not even to cross the street!), but today, there it was.
• and last but not least, these last few weeks I have had deep tissue massage. Definitely a splurge for me, but it seems like there is now at least a chance that my hamstrings and glutes won't be all tied up by mile 9. 

There you have it. That's the best I can muster.
This pep talk will probably not go down in history as inspiring armies off to war, but hey, I'm a realist. I don't believe in race day miracles, just running your fitness.

And the most important thing?
Today, for just a few minutes, I caught myself looking forward to the race. 

I'd almost forgotten what that felt like. 

On Entering the Dreaded Holding Pattern

Racing.
It's why we run, right? The carrot at the end of the stick? The big goal race at the end of a hard training cycle?

Well...  yes and no.
It certainly seems that way sometimes, like when getting up at 5 am to run doubles, or squeezing in a 12 mile weekday workout during "lunch", or when shelling out big bucks for entry fees, airfare, and hotel rooms. It's all for that one day at the end of the training cycle, the big payoff of one perfectly executed race and a new PR.

But what happens when you don't have that big race coming up? Or when you have that big race coming up but you know you won't be ready? Or when you want to have a big race to shoot for but can't realistically say when that will be possible?

I've been pondering these questions recently because I'm finding myself in an unfortunately familiar spot, where it looks increasingly like I'm going to have to bail on my next big goal race (Boston).

After illness derailed my fall Plan A (CIM) and injury derailed my fall Plan B (Holiday Half), I was looking forward to having a little downtime to get healthy and back on track for my spring Plan A. In fact, it never even occurred to me that it was a Plan A. It was just The Plan.

But it's not really happening. Yes, I am back running everyday and yes, my injury is almost gone, but it has taken way longer to get here than I'd hoped. I'm running almost 60 miles a week now, but I feel like I'm running 90 miles a week. And not in a good, look-at-how-fit-I'm-getting, kind of a way, but in a holy-cow-I'm-tired-and-I-feel-awful kind of a way. I feel like I'm about a hundred years away from doing a real workout. I've been through this before, and I know that when the time comes, things can turn around right quick. But the arrival of that time is hard to predict and apparently it's not here yet.

So, as Boston email confirmations show up in my inbox, I get philosophical.

What if I just went anyway, even if I'm not in my best shape? I mean, I'll be able to finish, right? And sure, usually the point of racing is to run as fast as possible, but isn't it sometimes enough just to show up and do what you can? What about going and enjoying the experience?
Or, what if I ran a late spring marathon instead? It's not my usual thing to show up at a small town marathon and hope to run well, but couldn't this be a chance to broaden my horizons and run some new (to me) races?
Or, what if I enter a holding pattern at my current level and (gasp) don't plan anything at all until I'm actually healthy? The thing I miss most is enjoying the run, so shouldn't I get back to that first and foremost and let everything else fall where it may?

Anyway.
I can philosophize about these things while the miles tick by on my ridiculously slow "long" runs, as if I have some big choice to make, but the reality is that my body is telling me in no uncertain terms that we will be entering a holding pattern right about now. Until I can run some semblance of a workout or even enjoy an easy run, it would be phenomenally stupid to try to force myself to train like a healthy marathoner.

You never know, maybe that magical turning point will arrive this week or next, and then I will have a real decision to make, but for now I'll just keep on keeping on, and try not to do anything stupid. And ok, maybe I'll make some plans about making future plans...  just to pass the miles, of course.

Plan B. Lemons to lemonade and all that.

Three weeks ago my marathon training was going awesome. I’d just finished up the best first half of a marathon training block I’ve ever had and felt perfectly in control doing it.

It was the week of 10/14, henceforth to be known as Week 1.  I was planning a recovery week with a rust-buster 5k (Run Like Hell) at the end, and then was going to jump back into marathon training the following week, with 5 solid weeks of training and 2 weeks of taper on the horizon.

Week 1, or the clusterfuck of life begins.

In hindsight, Week 1 really wasn’t that bad, it was just the setup for Week 2 and Week 3.

I had to travel for work, and the schedule went a little something like this:

Tuesday: up at 5 am, run an 18 mile workout (in which I kicked all of the ass, thank you very much), eat, dress, shower, head out to a meeting in Hillsboro, head back to the office, head to the airport, two flights with a layover, dinner, arrive at hotel at 10 pm. 17 hour day.

Wednesday: up at 3 am for a 30 minute jog (yes, the jury is out on the stupidity of that), meet group at 4:30, drive 2 hours to site, walk around on site til noon, drive 75 minutes to next site, walk around on site til 5, drive 45 minutes back to home base, dinner, arrive at hotel at 9 pm. 18 hour day.

Thursday: up at 4:30 am for an hour run, BREAKFAST (yay, real food!!), meet group at 7:30 am, sit in a conference room until 5 pm, dinner, two more flights with layover, home from airport at 12:30 am. 20 hour day.

You get my drift. Not enough sleep, not enough real food, legs jammed in airplane seats, legs jammed in cars, legs forced to walk around for hours one day and forced to sit in a conference room all day the next. When Sunday’s race rolled around, my legs were irritable, to say the least. I knew I wasn’t going to have my best race legs under me, and that dampened my enthusiasm for the race, but I also knew I was pretty damn fit, so I did my best to stay positive.

Cue the train.

Anyone who has run a race in downtown Portland is familiar with the trains. Most downtown race courses cross train tracks at one point or another, and you may not be aware of this fact, but trains have the complete right of way 100% of the time. They will not wait, they will not be re-scheduled. They will come when they come, you won’t know when that will be, and you WILL stop and wait for them.

During the Run Like Hell races this year, that meant that the half marathoners got stopped at mile 12, the 10kers got stopped at either mile 1 or mile 3, and the 5kers? Well, we were on the start line, so we never even got started. Of all 3 groups, that should make us the lucky ones, but here’s the kicker: the train was stopped on the tracks for 70 minutes. 70 minutes!! And of course no one thinks it’s going to be more than a few minutes, so at first we just stood there and waited. After about 10 minutes, I left the start area to start re-warming up. I warmed up about 4 different times, and still I was not very warm when the gun went off!

By the time we finally started, it was pretty hard to care that much about racing. My only real goal was to run so hard my legs turned to rubber when I crossed the finish line, but I couldn’t quite get there. I ran a good effort, but had way too much left at the end, and felt recovered about 3 seconds after I finished. My official time was 17:33, and given the short course, that equates to about 17:45 for a real 5k.

So, not awesome, but not too bad under the circumstances.

I’ll take it, I thought to myself, onward and upward. Bring on the last marathon training block and kicking ass at CIM.

Week 2, or where things start to get serious.

More work related travel loomed that week, but it was only a one night trip, so I hoped it wouldn’t be too disruptive. Tuesday morning I got an easy 11 miles in before heading to the airport. I was feeling a little low energy, but no big deal, right? Another long travel day jammed in an airplane window seat, ending in Houston, followed by a 4:30 am alarm Wednesday morning.

Except this time when the alarm went off, I almost ignored it. I did not feel terrific. Not at all.

But I got up, got in a token 6 miles and climbed back into bed for a few minutes. I couldn’t point to any specific problems yet, but something was off. I suffered through another 15 hour day, which blessedly ended with catching an earlier flight home, but the plane ride back to Portland was a nightmare. Flying when you’re just starting to get sick is so painful. The changes in air pressure, the inability to get comfortable, being jammed in another window seat…  it’s torturous. 

Thursday I stayed home from work and took the day off running. I told myself that one day off would take care of everything. One full day of rest and I’d be right back at it the next day. Just a little cold, right?

And you know what? I did feel better when I woke up on Friday morning. I did my morning run and went to work. See? Everything's fine.

Midway through the day, however, my stomach started to hurt. I did my evening run anyway, but it was pretty unpleasant. I immediately flopped on the couch afterwards, wondering what I'd eaten that day to cause such fury in my guts.

I'll just lie here and it'll go away in a few minutes, I thought. Twenty minutes later, I was literally losing my lunch.

I must have food poisoning, I told myself, and I was not too pleased about that idea. I’ve had food poisoning once before, and let me just say, it was a long night.

Well, it was a long night once again, and when the vomiting finally subsided, I was exhausted. I remained almost entirely horizontal all day Saturday, rising once to go out to brunch, which for me involved eating one piece of bread and a few potatoes and pushing the rest of the food around my plate. Anyone who has ever eaten a meal with me should be properly alarmed at the idea of me "pushing food around my plate" rather than shoveling it into my mouth at breakneck speed.

But hey, the good thing about food poisoning is that once it's out of your system, you bounce right back, right?


Week 3, or when I don't bounce right back.

In case you haven't guessed what's coming, it turns out it wasn't food poisoning. I started to suspect this on Sunday night when I had a couple of veggie enchiladas (the most "real" food I'd tried to eat since Friday) and got really sick again. On Monday when I still felt like I'd been hit by a bus, and then Tuesday morning when I learned that I'd passed my "food poisoning" on to someone else (I'm really really sorry, Paul!), it became clear that I had a nasty old virus. And that I would not be bouncing right back.

Week 3 was not very exciting. It alternated between having unsuccessful, ridiculously hard "easy" runs and not even bothering to put my running shoes on. It consisted of not being able to eat much of anything except soup. It consisted of a general sense of malaise and ill will towards humanity. It consisted of a lot of lying on the couch and going to bed at 8:30 pm.

By Thursday evening, though, I began to feel remarkably like a human being again.

Along the way I discovered the absolute best soup in downtown Portland (Savor!!), and by Friday I was celebrating my newfound ability to digest food by consuming everything that wasn't nailed down. I also started running again, stringing together 4 whole days in a row by the end of the week, two of which were double digit runs.

The clouds had lifted. I'm not exaggerating about that part, either. If you have never experienced a stomach virus, you might not know how shitty it feels to try to go through regular life while not being able to eat. And it's perfectly ok if you never know that. In fact, I recommend not ever finding out for yourself. You can just trust me that it sucks.

So what's this Plan B already? (you're probably dying to know)

Despite my disgruntlement with the state of my own little private world, the minute it occurred to me that I might not be able to run CIM, I started working on an alternate plan. Anyone who's a longtime runner knows the power of having something on the horizon.

That's where the Holiday Half comes in.

It’s only one week later than CIM, but it’s a half, so I only need one week of taper (instead of two for a full marathon), which effectively gives me two extra weeks to get my shit together between now and then.

I spent a fair amount of time comparing my illness-adjusted training schedule spreadsheets (one for still running CIM, and one for the Holiday Half), and seeing it on paper made it painfully clear: CIM was out. Just didn't make sense anymore.

My brain adjusted to that reality pretty quickly. I started to see all the positives about running the half in lieu of the full:

• I've never run a half when I've been good and fit. (Until this past summer, my half marathon PR was whatever I ran during the second half of my marathon PR.) So I'll (hopefully) be primed for a new personal best.
• The half is in Portland, aka "easy and cheap".
• Running a half in December probably puts me in a better position for Boston than running a full in December. I'll be recovered faster and less likely to be injured. Also less likely to be burned out on training.
• Switching to the half lets me get in 5 more weeks of real training, but also gives me a little more freedom to change up my workout plan a bit, adjust the focus slightly, hit the track a little more.

Week 4, or the new Week 1.

The hotel and plane reservations have been canceled. The Plan B race registration has been completed. Yesterday I did an actual track workout. And while I'd be lying if I said it felt great, I did run times at the same level as before the sickness, and I did feel less like a robot as the workout went on.

And you know what? I'm excited about the half.

Sometimes change is for the best, even when it's not entirely by choice.

Lacamas Lake half marathon: Sometimes you surprise yourself

I was so relaxed about the race that I slept through the alarm. Twice.
On the third round my brain finally registered an annoyance: It's Sunday. Why is my alarm going off?
....   .....  ....
Oh. I have a race today.

It was that kind of a thing.
I hadn't been on the track in months, and only had 3 solid weeks of 60+ miles under my belt. I'd been doing some transition workouts, though, and I definitely felt like I was on the upswing, even if not very fit yet.

Plus, this was a half marathon. Those are so far out of my wheelhouse I can't really get nervous for them. There's just so much time in that race distance. It's not like a 5k, where you're full out from the gun, and if you have even the slightest mental lapse you can kiss your PR goodbye. In the half, relaxation and patience are what pay off.

And then there was the course. Described as "moderately challenging" by the race directors (a euphemism for slooow), and containing a 3.5 mile stretch on trails, the Lacamas Lake half marathon was not destined to go down in the books as a speedy course. Given my (lack of) fitness, the course, and my intention to run conservatively and use the second half as a good workout, I was feeling like I'd be pleased to run 87-88 minutes. Just getting a decent workout in.

But I still did my usual stuff. Singlet, race shoes, warmup....  usual routine.

In the start area, I ran into Ben, one of my longtime Hood to Coast teammates. It's always nice to see a familiar face before a race. I knew Ben would be sandbagging, and he was, but I told him I would not be falling for his act, I would not be trying to run anywhere near him. (Although I did tell him that I would be sure to tap him on the shoulder if I passed him later on when he was dying.)

As the race went off, my lavender race shoes caught the corner of my eye, and the thought popped into my head that this was my first race since Boston. In general, I haven't really associated the Boston bombings with running to the degree that a lot of people have, so the sentiment caught me off guard. To me the bombings had nothing to do with actual running, the marathon was just an easy target. But whether for running reasons or emotional reasons, I took a second to appreciate how awesome it was to be racing again.

After about 2 blocks, the course turned and ran smack into a steep hill. It was 2 or 3 blocks long, and its presence thinned the field pretty abruptly. I'm not a good climber, but I was probably in about 10th place overall by the top of that hill. A couple guys I'd passed on the way up came back by me in the next minute or two as we all started to settle in, including Ben. I laughed and told him I'd see him around mile 11 and watched him drift off into the distance, reeling people in one by one.

First mile split was 7:15, which I thought was perfect given the hill. I started easing down below 7 minute pace, but made sure to keep very relaxed. Plenty of time. I didn't feel like I was chomping at the bit, but I was fine.

Through mile 4 or 5 was pretty uneventful. The course was more rolling that I expected. There was a stretch or two where you could see pretty far out in front of you. I picked off a couple of guys that were hovering near me but definitely not at a happy effort level for them, and when I looked up I could see Ben way off in the distance and 3 or 4 guys between me and him, spread out pretty evenly.
I gauged them. The first two in front of me would come back, I decided. The third guy? Probably. Ben? I didn't think so.

I seemed to be running around 6:45-6:50 pace in general, but I wasn't paying a lot of attention. Still didn't feel awesome, and thought to myself that I probably would not be killing the second half of the race. Whatever, just getting a good workout in.

Just when the rolling hills were starting to annoy me, we hit a nice long downhill stretch. And we're talking good downhill, the kind you can really use. I held back a bit at first, but it just kept going and it felt so nice, I couldn't resist letting myself run it. I hit a mile marker (6?) and my watch said 6:25. Ok, easy there, Andi, it's a little early, just keep it smooth.

But then I wanted to run. The troublemaker voices in my head had rousted themselves out of their slumber and they wanted more. Running fast feels so much better, they said. Just keep going, it'll be fine.

I tried not to think about it too much. I just relaxed and ran.

But then little things kept happening that would get me excited. Like when a woman in her car, pulled off on the shoulder, yelled out her window at me: Hey! You're the first woman I've seen! Nice job!
(I knew I was the first woman, it was a small race after all, not too hard to keep tabs on people, but still, it's kind of nice when someone else is excited about it.)

And then a water station approached with a bunch of young ladies volunteering, and they were very happy to see the first woman come by. Lots of cheering, and one yelled out: Hey! Are you Andi? I'm Becky! (And that's how I met my Oiselle teammate Becky Leung.)

And then there was a short steep hill and a turn and another bunch of cheering spectators, and that was when I realized we were on the short little out and back segment of the course.
(If you've never raced, this might be counterintuitive, but people racing cheer for each other on the out and back segments. Yes, it gives you the rare chance to see how far ahead or behind your competitors are, but it's also energizing to cheer and be cheered for.)

My point is, I wasn't slowing back down. I didn't want to.

I saw the lead guy coming back at me, then the next guy, then Ben (go Ben!), another guy, then the 3 guys I was still gunning for. I was in 8th place.

As we hit the 180 degree turnaround, I started stepping on it a little. I was having fun. I had energy. When people were cheering for me, I was smiling and saying thank you. I was having a ball. It was time to see what I had.

The next two guys in front of me were not having as much fun, I don't think. One was a young kid, and when I sidled up next to him, he said: Where'd you come from? I paused just long enough to smile and say, I'm trying to negative split, we'll see how it goes. And I took off.

My next mile (mile 8?) was just under 6 minutes. Oops. Maybe a little early to be running that fast. As we hit the trail section, I dialed it back a notch and just started cruising along. I was happy to be in the trail section, oddly enough, because it was the only part of the course I had run on before that day. The trail was a little bit rolling, but very run-able in general. Flat for a trail, in other words.

At the entrance to the trails, the next guy was in my sights. I used him to help me in my efforts to dial it back. I stayed about 10 feet behind him for a minute or two, just feeling myself out, but next thing I knew I was pulling up next to him. I'm not sure if he sped up or if I slowed down, but we ran pretty close to each other for a few minutes. I was being very careful not to press too hard just to get rid of him, and in fact I thought maybe we'd end up racing together for quite a while, but by mile 9 he started to fall back.

And then I was alone.

The next couple of miles were just me and the trail. It was great, though. I was just flying along by myself, the only sound was my own breathing. I wondered at one point if anyone else would come back to me, but I didn't really care. I didn't feel like I needed someone to chase at that point. At 10 miles I did see a race official, who said: about 5k to go, as I approached. I responded: well, that seems kind of far. He laughed and said I looked great.

I really had no idea how fast I was running anymore. My Garmin was beeping mile splits at weird places, so I'd just glance down at the pace reading once in a while. It usually said 6:20-something, and I figured that was probably in the ball park.

Just past 11 miles, the course pops back out onto the road, where.....   you guessed it, the half marathon joins up with the second half of the 5k course. And the 5k is still in progress. Of course.

And there was a downhill. So now I was running what turned out to be sub 6 pace, and overtaking runners who were running 25-30 minute 5k pace. And this is all taking place on one lane of road. As you might expect, I scared the bejesus out of some of those runners. I tried to stay wide as much as possible, but there's only so much you can do.

With the downhill and the adrenaline from bobbing and weaving through the crowds, mile 12 came in under 6 minutes. Mile 12 to 12.25 saw the adrenaline abruptly disappear and for the first time in the race, I was actually tired. I envisioned a one mile death march to the finish, but then, unexpectedly, my energy evened back out. My internal ship had been righted, and with another downhill at the finish, my last mile was around 5:50.

As I came flying around the corner to the short 2 block finish straightaway, I felt pretty damn good. I was stoked, to be honest. But when I saw the finish clock, I was just confused. It said 1:24:something. Crossing the line and slowing to a stop, I squinted down at my watch.

My watch agreed with the clock! What the....? Did I really just run 84 minutes for a half?

I stood there in the finish area, and while my brain tried to process this, I realized that no one at the finish understood that I had run the half marathon and not the 5k. The finish ladies were standing there with the half marathon medals, but they were just looking at me. And when I had crossed the line, they hadn't announced that I was the first woman.

I was still pondering how I'd managed to run 84 minutes when I'd only been on 89 minute pace at halfway, when finally one of them said to me: did you run the half or the 5k?
Half, I replied, and she turned to relay that information to the other guys at the finish. Maybe they thought I was still standing there because I was dying to have a medal, but really I was just so giddy at my 84 minute "training run" half marathon that I didn't know what to do with myself.

It kind of made me think, hey, maybe I really can run a decent half marathon sometime. If I was ready. And if it was a fast course.

You know, sometime. As in, some other time. For now, just get me to Hood to Coast, baby.

Bring it, slug hunters.