Running is the antidote for cockiness

I ran 18 miles this weekend. All at once. Seriously. And I felt pretty darn good too. Regular water stops kept me hydrated. Preventative ibuprofen at mile 11 kept my back from acting up. And multiple layers of clothing kept me from freezing to death on a 4 hour run in 14 degree weather. To add to my sense of grandeur, Runner Wendy and I finished our 18 miles in the same amount of time as we completed our 16 miles two weeks earlier. But anyone who has trained for a marathon will tell you that the sport has a way of smacking you down when you get too full of yourself - as I soon found out.

Let's start with the wardrobe. Now anyone that knows me can tell you that when I have a goal, I will work towards it with reckless abandon until I achieve it. This has caused me to run in conditions that have been less than ideal. However, I would normally not be so keen on running in below-freezing temperatures or pre-dawn rains. Because of this fact, I do not own many cold weather running clothes and I don't own any holy-crap-it's-freezing outside running clothes. So for Saturday's frigid run, it was necessary to layer multiple items that I do own. I didn't realize how ridiculous I looked until mile 5. Note the black capris/blue tights combo. Classy.

Unfortunately, the the indignities did not end with the unfortunate wardrobe. At the mile 11 water stop, I looked down to grab some GU chomps out of my pouch and discovered a lovely surprise that a bird dropped on me. As you can imagine, the options to clean oneself up along Constitution Trail are somewhat limited. Luckily (and I use that term loosely here) another running group had an event that morning and I was able to "borrow" a paper cup from their stash and scrape off as much of the bird essence as possible. I couldn't help but think that for the last 7 miles I was running with a bird crap brooch.

Despite the efforts of the running gods to keep my ego in check, I finished my run feeling great. I wasn't sore and I wasn't terribly tired. I had burned, according to Wendy's GPS computer watch thingy, approximately 2,491 calories and my next stop was to get a doughnut. So take that running gods, you can't ruin my sugar high!