Cowboy Hazel

This morning's run was the result of a perfect storm, if you will... Even if I wasn't in the middle of my tapering for the marathon, I would be seriously stressed out right about now. I have a huge project (this financial advisor site I've been developing the back-end for over the past couple months) that is going to be launched on Wednesday and, as of Friday afternoon, I was about 50% complete with my part of it. I put in 10+ hour days both yesterday and today, but still am not even close to where I should be... I would still be working now but my brain just shut off. I'm pretty sure that if you could see inside of my head, it would look like that "This is your brain on drugs" commercial. As if that weren't enough, I'm going to be heading down to my biggest client's offices on Madison Avenue tomorrow to get specs on a new project for them and negotiate my contract for the upcoming season. Of course, with the economic climate the way it is right now, I have a lot riding on this conversation. And, I really don't know how it's going to turn out. Of course, that's not all – I'm also meeting with a potential new client tomorrow afternoon and haven't even had a chance to think about what I'm going to say there... Oh, and did I mention, a week from today is the most important day of my life so far? The marathon that I set out to run in 2001 is finally going to happen. Or is it? Of course, I don't expect it not to (yes, that was an intentional double negative), but what if something goes wrong? What if I get the flu, or twist an ankle, or get struck by lightning and then run over by a bus? And then, even if I finish, will I qualify for Boston? What if I miss the time by a minute? What if I'm doing great and then cramp up and watch my dreams go down the drain? Will I be able to handle that?

Okay, so I woke up this morning at like five o'clock (way before my alarm went off), tried to go back to sleep, but eventually gave up and decided to get a bit of work done before the run. I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (my favorite pre-run meal) and forced myself to eat it, even though my stomach was in knots and I wasn't hungry at all. That was a mistake. I threw it up like ten minutes later. I waited around the house for an hour, ate another sandwich, took a couple Excedrin to help with the pounding headache that had set in and headed out to the subway. It was freezing outside (actually mid-40's – not that bad for November, but I was just wearing shorts and a t-shirt). I headed down to 68th Street, stopped by the bank, and then jogged over to Central Park. I started running at a good, but normal, pace. It was one of those runs where it progressively felt better and better as I kept going. And so, I kept increasing speed – It wasn't really a conscious decision, it just happened. There was a race going on today too, and I ended up side by side with that for a couple miles on my last stretch of the run. This was where it just got out of hand. The energy from the race just seemed to seep into me and I couldn't help but let it carry me on. I completely opened up my stride the last three miles of my run and was running as hard as I could be without sprinting. One of the volunteers said to me (without sarcasm), "Nice pace," as I ran past his post. It was such a compliment. Anyway, I finished up the run of 8.6 miles at an average pace of 6:39!! I know for some people, that's not that big of a deal, but for me, that's insane. That's faster than my official 10K P.R. pace (granted I haven't run a 10K in a long time, but still...)

Unfortunately, that was way more than my body could actually handle. I had no business running that fast and it was a stupid decision to let myself get carried away with the emotions on the run. I paid for it dearly all day long. I got back home and spent about an hour in the bathroom and have made many subsequent trips back there. I still feel like hell. So, at the conclusion of my weekend, I am exhausted, sore, and still severely stressed out and not at all ready to tackle a Monday morning. Especially not one in which I actually have to do the whole commuting thing like normal people. How you all do it every day is beyond me...

So, all this crazy work on my agenda is the reason for the relative quiet up here. I thought about ranting about how much the Jets coaching pissed me off on Thursday, but I didn't have the energy. I'll just sum that up with a quote from Cris Collinsworth, "The prevent defense does what? Prevents you from winning." At least they won it in overtime. I didn't make it to do laundry Wednesday because I had this lecture downtown that I had forgotten about. It was about database structure for rapidly growing social applications and would have been pretty good except that it was in the back room of a bar and I was stuck in the last row and could only hear about every other word that the lecturer was saying. So, Friday ended up being laundry night instead which was annoying because apparently the laundromat is a hang-out for local middle schoolers on Friday night. Who knew? It was also a sad laundry run because I realized, when I got home, that it was finally time to retire two of my favorite pieces of clothing. My Hawaii Prep sweatpants that I got on a biology trip in 1999 developed a hole in the crotch that was just a little too provocative. And, my Bolder Boulder t-shirt from 2003 (which I wore last week when it was raining like crazy and everything was flooded) had so many mud stains, sweat stains, and random holes that I finally decided that it had to be put down too. I took it out for one last run yesterday, though, just for old time's sake. And, fittingly, it was raining...

That's about all I have to report. I'm really looking forward to getting this next week over with. Hopefully, there'll be happier news soon. For now, I'm going to go grab a quick shower and then catch the end of the Cowboys Redskins game. Have a good week everyone.