Pre- the biggest Race of my entire life!!!!! (For now)

OH MY WORD the day totally came rushing at me like a bat out of hell. Friday I got a txt from one of my running buddies saying “Are you getting your bib tonight or tomorrow?” I was like Wait!!! What???

Yes the day is upon us and I needed to start getting everything together for 36^th Annual Marine Corps Marathon 2011!!!! (Ok I will stop with all the !!! but gosh darn the excitement, no words to describe the excitement).

So after taking .05 seconds to decide that I was meeting up with him to get my bib I was out the big glass doors. It was 5pm somewhere and had my sights set on the Armory Stadium for some bib action, Marine viewing action and Expo action. All those actions were met. Good lord there are some good looking men in the service.

Couldn't decide which one to use.

Bib and shirt

Yellow is such a good color on and around me

My new fav numbers

At this point I was already 2 days into making every smart decision known to mankind regarding my food. If you are someone that reads most of my blogs you will know I discovered in “7 pounds of salt” that eating is everything. So once I spent way too much money at the expo on water belts and magnets we headed out for a very calculated pasta dinner with minimal cheese and only a beer. Something I have done time and time again. Saturday I had a great breakfast, ate during the day, drank some water, not enough and had my soda. Again this is all things I have done in the past. If you are wondering why these observations are so important… wait for it, I will explain.

My Saturday evening was spent getting everything together for Race Day and facebooking with anyone and everyone that wanted to talk about the race. I could lie to you and tell you it took my 3 minutes to put my things together but nope I could never lie … it took me hours to put together this masterpiece…

Sneakers check, Alka check, warmers check, sneakers check, glide check, sneakers check again.....

I was so proud of myself when I stood back to see my work of art. I had everything out and ready to go including my dollar store leg warmers that I use as arm warmers (by the way, why call your store a dollar store if you have crap that is $5?). I didn’t do anything with the patch but I did use the Alka Seltzer. That is a secret I am happy to share with you… Alka Seltzer is a good idea the night before or morning of race day. With all that done I crawled into bed a 9:30pm like a good girl. 11:30pm got woken up by a lonely puppy (roommates 8 yr old pitbull that I love dearly) then awake again at 2:30am. Ugh all I wanted to do was sleep but around 3am it felt like some evil spirit took my insides, tied them into a huge knot and pulled with all its evil might. Two Alka tablets later and curled up in a ball I was able to go back to sleep. Alarm clock went off at 4:30am….I love running and races but not really sure how I feel about a 4:30am wake up. Especially when I know I did not get enough sleep. Jumped (not really) out of bed, showered and ate 2 whole wheat thin bagels with Nutella. Usually I wouldn’t care about showering but I was about to go running for 5 hours…. I needed to shower. Honestly, I wish a few people on the course did the same thing. Plan was for running partner to drop off Tracy at my place, Covergirl girlfriend was walking over too and then we would do the 1.5 mile walk to Pentagon to get my Texas girl. To Tracy from NY surprise, I am an avid follower of her blog so it was great to have her there with us.      

Girls collected up and out the door we went…..

Race day events will follow shortly, with a side of porta potty devastation...

7 pounds of salt….

Why do cows need to lick salt blocks:

When salt intake is below that required to meet the animal’s need for sodium and chloride, the animal adjusts by conserving salt. Urine output of sodium and chloride nearly stops. A continuous low salt intake affects the health of animals through a loss of appetite and weight.  Bluh bluh something else boring and  bluh bluh bluh something else”. (Courtesy of Yahoo!Answers)

 (Where you could find me this past weekend)

I think the above does this cow justice when you ask why I inhaled a cheeseburger (Friday routine), only had ONE slice of pepperoni pizza all day Saturday and shamelessly pulled up to McD’s Drive thru at 10pm. Paid cash for a Angus Quarter pounder with fries like I was meeting a street hooker and didn’t want any proof on my debit card of such dirty encounters. Might be the only time in my life I didn’t care what they did with the Coco Cola. And of course the weekend would not be complete without a fried Shrimp Po’Boy and fries. In case logic and math is not your strongest quality… that is a BOATLOAD of salt and not enough food for a weekend. Now I am well aware that I need to take ownership of my behavior but Saturday was somewhat out of my control. They said there would be lunch…more like a snack before the real snacks get here. Lunch my rear-end. Does a food event organizer not know what a meal looks like? And McD’s was out of pure desperation. Oh wait there might have been an all sausage and bacon omelet the size of my head in there somewhere. All this resulted in the scale been 7 pounds heavier from last week. Needless to say Sunday’s 13 mile run… correction strong 6 miles to bootcamp, 5 painful miles after an hour of bootcamp and a 2 mile walk was by far my worst showing ever.

“And the Award for Worst Athlete Ever goes to…. ILLANA!”

 (I have not figured out photoshop yet, don't judge)

Monday morning Edward Cullen and I had more in common than our passion for fast cars….

(My eyes..my eyes)

 I was glowing with salt crystals on my skin. Only because I don’t live out near a cow farm I was able to survive the day and make it to the store for REAL food.

     (btw all for less than $85...who said you can't do healthy on a budget. B&J is healthy and I will fight you if you say different)

Just when I was coming to terms with my life been controlled by an 18 week Hal Higdon Marathon training schedule reality bitch slapped in the form of an 13 mile run. This running all the mileage crap is for the birds. You can run your little heart out, run your big wobbly legs off, run off 2 of your 4 ass cheeks but, none of this matters if YOU DON’T EAT RIGHT!!! My life is now run by veggies, mini bagels, and eating all the time. Prior to training I would scream and yell about how annoying the eating 3 times a day thing is. NOW it’s like 6, 7, 100 times a day. What do I do to keep myself somewhat sane during these food infested days? Soda on Thursday cos I am tired and I need to boost, a bag of potato chips on Friday as I have until Saturday morning to get it out of my system, Chocolate milk to get the calories and nutrients I need (love this one) and passionately make out with a bacon cheese burger with caramelized onions on a Friday. Aside from these little treats that make me feel human I live a life of eating healthy and eating more healthy.

(Avo, Tomato on a toasted wrap made at work)

And here I am going around calling myself a Runner… pfft.   

As a side note because even as a rookie Runner and now apparently Eater I do make time for other fun things:

Running partner and I tired something new. We did a wine class with some oil painting. Wait I said that wrong.  We did an oil painting class with some wine. Great time, not ideal for meeting new guys but great second date place (hint for anyone that needs ideas).

Look at how great we did.

So to sum up Week 8 going into 9… we got it done. Need I even mention the lesson learned?

What do you do to keep yourself sane during training and what non-running things did you do to make life normal?

Happy Friday