In which crazy people do crazy things...

Where to even begin with all this madness??

After weeks of battling thru my long runs alone I was pretty damn pumped when my Big Pimpin Friend Danielle suggested that we slog thru 24 hellacious miles of torment together along with Sarah, the crazy ultramarathoner (in training...)

I was invited to crash her in-laws dinner party and since I'm always trolling for people to feed me I was absurdely excited. Also, Danielle's family is straight up fun.

There might have been some whiskey passed around.

Several times.

Oops...

But I digress. After teaching Chips the cat to do some amazing tricks (fail) and eating more dinner than I have in months (WIN) and then chasing the cat out from under the bed (tricky) dealing with a huge thunderstorm (scary) we went to sleep.

Oh, and after giggling, having pillow fights, jello wrestling, whatever else runner girls do on a sleep over (or not...)

The alarm went off and we saw this.
I think FML was the phrase of the hour.

We were very excited and thrilled to be hitting the road at 4AM. I might be stretching the truth just a little here. From the couch, Danielle's husband (who clearly has more logic than we do) might have questioned our sanity but we dismissed him quickly and went scampering off into the darkness.

So, after running for about 12 hours the sun came up and it was really gorgeous. Yay!

The three of us ran 8 or so miles and picked up Eric (how do you pick up a another runner? you kind of run by them and they sneak into your group. it works) He ran a few with us and then took off leaving us all in his dust... Jeesh... And I believe he had finished, eaten a few meals, biked 100 miles and conquered the world before we were even done. GAHD, I need to go back to normal person mileage! But I digress.

We ran for 34,987 hours and I discovered that Sarah keeps a whole days worth of food in her camelback. It was pretty damn amazing. She had a whole thanksgiving dinner in there plus a 12 pack of ice cold diet coke and she kept whipping it out and chowing down. Way to go there lady, I need you to follow me around and feed me from now on!

At mile 134 (or 18) Danielle had to run back home because she had real life stuff to do. She sprinted the last two miles at a 6:40 pace, putting us to shame. She might disagree with this but it's the truth...

8 miles to go and things were ok. 2 miles to go and the wheels fell off my bus. I am so horrified by the complete deterioration of my physical state that I don't wish to recall it because it's blowing my confidence all to hell. Bottom line, I was DONE. My legs were good but my vomiting-on-my-shoes reflex was definitely making its presence known and it sucked major balls. UGH.

Completely depleted I staggered incoherently back to Danielle's house, looking like my face had been eaten by zombies. I sat on her couch for 20 minutes and stared at her cat before I could even form a logical thought.

EFF THIS, was the first thing that came to mind..

UGH. I'm glad I have another 5 weeks or so because I have some serious work to do.

And Sarah, fresh as a daisy continued to run and completed a full marathon.

Dude, way to go (you are officially big pimpin to the max!)

Anyway. The next Day.

All was forgotten and I felt fine in the wake of my humbling attempt at distance running.

I managed to talk Angie into doing my recovery 5 with me. She's been doing a killer job at upping her mileage so this was a long run for her. She kind of hated it and we might no longer be friends. I kinda shouted at her for 3 straight miles to "Keep going, damnit!!!" Haha!

Looking good, per the norm.

Yesterday I felt good enough to take my legs out and tackle 13 hilly miles which, compared to 24, felt like a walk in the park. Funny how it's all relative like that...

So in conclusion:

-Runners sleepovers: Fun!

-Running 24: Not as fun....

Being done with 24?: Awesome...

Thinking about doing it again: Not as awesome...

My current confidence level for this upcoming Marathon: Fairly poor... Uh oh...