With roughly 120 days until death, I mean our ½ marathon, I figured I should share an update. I’m not doing so hot but keep reading (please).

I did a 5k, in North Dakota, in December, because I’m a moron. Here I thought, “Hey, we could finish in less than 3.5 hours I need to get a time in so we can get in like the fun corral!” or something like that. Robin won’t admit it but she’s a Speedy Gonzales and is already doing like 10 minute miles without killing herself. So it’s me that needs to catch up. She needs consistency, I need to get my lazy ass in gear. So I –was- running two days during the week, thanks to a decent flexing schedule and day care covering my ass, with one long run on the weekend. I say long, but really it just means I go for x distance. So I was doing 20-30 minutes “training” runs and then 2-6 miles on the weekend. I can survive. I will survive… but currently at the pace I’m going the Disney police will be carting my ass off the course and I won’t be a “finisher”… their rule is if you are slower than a 16 min/mile you are too slow to finish “on time” and are therefore disqualified from finishing… here I thought just making it to the finish line is what matter but, this is Disney World and they have a park to open with money to be made… so fuck me.

As if that rule alone didn’t sting… there’s this 5k. A “Santa run” all in good fun.

It was not fun

There were Santa’s

There was running

But there was no fun from my point of view, which was more often than not, from the ground. You see, here in the godforsaken land of North Dakota, there is ice… everywhere. The organizers told us that they “did the best” they could in clearing the tracks “but this is North Dakota and we run anyways, just try to be careful”… because being “careful” while RUNNING ON ICE is totally doable right?

Look, I know I’m not graceful, I’ve accepted that. But I WAS TRYING MY BEST NOT TO FALL AND FUCK ME I FELL EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TIME.

Like when I was walking.. I was fine… but I needed to get a time in and the path was all of 5 feet wide for the 430 people on the course so if you got stuck behind someone you’re stuck until the next junction….

I swear to Jesus, I was trying to get a decent time, my 300 pound self was chugging along at a 4 mile pace and staying JUST under my heart rate range limit… and as I would try to up it… I fell… then I’d have to walk until I recovered enough to feel up to running (or until I could get past some group of people laughing and talking about dinner plans)…. Then BAM on my ass again.

On my ass

On my knee

On my elbow, that hurt the worst.

ON MY BACK landing on a fucking rock that knocked the wind out of me and totally fucking embarrassed me as people stopped to make sure I was okay… and then keep running themselves. Which I appreciated, that was really nice of them to stop but still…

And I was FINE with the falling and the pain and the fucking torture of people LEAVING while I was still running because god dammit I was going to finish this with a decent time

I could’ve cheated and finished 6 minutes faster by doing only one loop instead of two in the final section… but I have morals … fucking morals.

SO I get to the finish line ready with my little stub of a paper to hand them so they can record an “official time”… at 53:15 so like 17 minute mile… THERE are groups of people taking pictures and a load of fucking people inside the building that was hosting… but no one at the line… so I walk inside, they hand me a giant fucking candy cane and say “great job you finally made it”… brush it off Ella, they don’t know what it took to get here… brush it off…. I ask “where do I turn in my stub to submit my time, there was no one at the finish line” this baffled woman says “I think they’re done with that part you could go ask them over there”… them over there… okay.. fine… I get this three times… three fucking times… I finally find the table where they are listing out the winners for each category and say, “who do I give this to so I can get my time recorded for online listing”.

I shit you not these words are forever fucking burned into my head:

“We only had someone taking the stubs until about 42 minutes, all the real runners where done long before that and we don’t have enough staff to get everyone that was walking”

How I’m not sitting in a jail cell right now I don’t fucking know.

I was fucking crushed. I know my time wasn’t going to get me into any kind of corral but I wanted something to show SOME improvement and I couldn’t believe someone would say that. The kicker, they had over 100 volunteers… four of which were within the last 30 feet of the finish line high fiving everyone as they passed… but not enough people to have someone scribble some numbers on a piece of paper…

Had I known… my first fall was maybe ten feet from my truck and I went alone, nothing was stopping me from just getting the keys out of the bed of the truck and leaving… nothing… but me. I could’ve gone home and ran in the comfort of my perfectly heated home and only had that one fall under my belt. No embarrassment. No one knew who I was. No one cared if I left. No one was “counting on me”. Like why the fuck didn’t I just leave? Had I not fallen all those time I really do think I could’ve done a 13-14 minute mile, ice and all, fucking HILLS and all. Fun fact, the incline in different areas was so steep my fitbit thought I did 17 floors…

I keep telling myself that had I known the time wasn’t going to matter I would’ve left right then and there, because that was the one that knocked the wind out of me… I don’t think anyone would’ve talked shit for me leaving after that one…

Sigh

So I send email to my doctor the next day because oh now I can’t even fucking walk… like it hurt to stand my legs were so sore. I can’t run until, well this week now, as that was almost three weeks ago. Loads of ibuprofen and positive reading and some yoga and now I think I’m okay to get back into the groove.

But I learned my lesson, never fucking again am I running in the snow/ice with a group that can’t get their shit together enough to record EVERYONE’S TIME.

 

#rantover

ELLA