The day I learned many valuable lessons and killed my Ipod...

Spontaneity is not my middle name. Occasionally in non athletic or non work related pursuits I throw caution to the wind, leap of the edge of the proverbial cliff and rebel against the world (doing something WILD like staying up to the ungodly hour of 9PM! Oh crap, I'm a badass rock star!) When it comes to real life I tend to walk from point A to point B with nary a squiggle between. Those are my Type A, First Child, Scorpio, and clearly FABULOUS tendencies coming out.
I had a good solid plan for prepping for the 4 miler on the 4th of July. So nobody was more surprised than I when the week before I signed up super last minute for a 5K. In reality I felt obligated due to the fact that it was friends of mine who were hosting the event and it was for a great cause. I determined that it was my moral and civic duty to attend and do well so off I went.
The conditions were dramatically different from those on the day of my first race. At 9AM it was turning into a hot day and was quite humid (to add insult to injury.) The weather had been warm for a while so I felt fairly acclimated but in reality it snows for 11 months out of the year where I live so acclimation is relative. Relatively impossible... In perperation I removed every acceptable article of clothing and declared myself ready to run like a Kenyan!
It was a small crowd (57 starters) and I knew almost everyone. For no apparent reason I was feeling more nervous than usual which was absolutely ridiculous because this was not an Olympic event. Regardless, I had a pretty funky case of the butterflies which were most unappreciated.
Out of the group I honed in on one lady, a bit older than myself but in 100% better shape. She was buff like WHAT! She had abs of steel and was clearly a very advanced runner who was going to be impossible to catch. She made me feel skinny and pale.....
The small gathering of future marathon champions got off to a nice start, myself included. Abs was leading the pack like some kind of tiny woman on futuristic steroids and due to my odd case of nerves I was just behind her in the leading bunch of people. My adrenaline carried me thru the first mile at a sickening 6.03 which made me feel very worried.
At mile 1.5 Abs and I were running elbow to elbow and were hot on the heels of the (male) leaders (no catching them... jerks...) I was definitely feeling the unpleasant side effects from my retardedly brisk start and had a feeling that Abs wasn't faring all that much better. The humidity was shockingly intense and the course which had looked elementary on paper was starting to feel like a sprint up Mt. Everest.
I got about 3 steps in front of Abs and hit the most ridiculous brick wall that I had ever felt. It was horrible and I hated everything about it, despised running, and thought that vomming, passing out or stopping was the wisest choice. None of which transpired because I'm insane.
I soldiered on. My inner monologue became very disjointed and bizarre. Things were just a bit.... Off. I determined that I had hit a large and mysterious piece of plastic wrap and it was doing its damndest to stop me, or to cause me to suffocate in a slow and painful manner. Egads!
Somehow despite the fact that miles 2-3 took me 9 minutes each I managed to squeak thru the finish line 3 seconds ahead of Abs and secure the 1st place ladies finish. (later to find out that Abs was a super nice lady and indeed, a very good runner who I managed to catch on an off day.) My finishing time was 23:19 which was fine considering the Hell that I passed thru getting there.
Bottom line, I learned several valuable lessons on this day of Doom which made me revise my plan for the 4 miler.

Lesson 1: Stop running like a chicken on crack for the first mile. Just Stop. Can't do it.
Lesson 2: What I was eating for breakfast- which was my "go to"meal of choice in my other sport was not gonna cut it for running.
Lesson 3: My Uncle Who Runs told me to cowboy up and pre-hydrate, a concept which I had believed to me mythical. (and will later prove to NOT be.)
Lesson 4: Don't bother trying to catch Abs, she is one fast Mo' Fo'.

And the moral of the story: As miserable as I was running (and continued to be throughout the day, alternating wishing to drink water and then to vom it back up) I was glad I did this little outing before the Big Race on the 4th. However, the worst part of the day was not getting dehydrated to the point of fricking hallucination but the sudden death of my beloved Ipod Nano that I had had since 2005. Evidently I sweat so much that I killed the little bugger... I was most disturbed since I refuse to run without music as I can not deal with the sound of my pokey footfalls and labored breathing. I dropped it in a dish of rice in an attempt to draw the sweat out of it to no avail. Since I did not need an Ipod that is also a phone, dvd player, maid, and kitchen sink I ordered (sadly) a pink shuffle... Will I like it? Wait to find out...