In which we kill our last long run.....

I'd like to say as early on as possible that the title of this post is a complete lie. I just did that to get your attention. In reality I should have used one of my other ideas...

A few possible titles for today's post:
In which our last long run kills us......
In which we learn that not all long runs are easy....
In which we narrowly avoid certain death....
In which we try to run for our lives and end up dying on the side of the road....

Do you see a pattern? Anyway, on to the good stuff.

I would imagine that one would hope, wish, pray, beg and negotiate with the running Gods that their last long run pre taper be a good one. I certainly know that I was at 4PM yesterday evening...

I can only hope that a bad dress rehearsal leads to a damn good show in the running world- if not, I'm screwed every which way until Friday. Or, late evening on the 27th of July....!

We had things like the weather working against us- it was 90. And humid. I know that I pregamed like a boss: steadily drinking water all day, smartly eating decent food beforehand, bringing my LARGE handheld and a stash of nasty GU. I talked myself into it big time- I was mentally as prepared as I could have been (despite a bit of complaining) and really thought that we might kill it.

So off I marched to meet up with Danielle at her house to take to the streets of Portland, Westbrook and beyond to dominate everyone and everything and to make running our bitch.

**that was the plan. seriously. game on. big pimpin style**

SO OFF WE WENT!

Despite the intense heat we both felt alright for the first 6 miles. No problems. Except that I totally ran out of water despite the huge bottle. Before mile 6... NOT a good sign...

Topics covered: All of Danielle's Marathon domination, her creepily clanking ankle, the bowl of milk at mile 0.04 that had my initials on it (ok. why won't THAT picture load?) our copious amounts of sweat and how the world is so lucky to have us. Which is a fact.

Emergency Water Stop NUMBER ONE!
Bottom line: There was NO WAY that we could keep up hydration given the amount we were sweating.
Thanks to Danielle's super cute Dad for the H20. Lifesaver...

We ran steadily, although with additional complaining inspirational words of motivation from miles 6-13 with another crisis water stop thrown in there somewhere. Right around the Half Marathon point we both started to come undone in a big way kill it, kill it, and run at a 6:30 pace, sprinting thru red lights and plowing over old people on Jazzy scooters and small children like it was our business...

Topics discussed at red lights which we hoped would last forever: How running sucks, how we literally could not run to save our lives, shark porn, potential vomiting, Oh, and I had to come to a full halt to watch a plane land. Yes I am very cool. We kept shouting things at each other: UGH! DAMMIT! FUCK! I HATE THIS AND I HATE YOU!!! (oops sorry) being the most popular.

I have no idea how we managed to get to mile 22. No. Idea. From mile 13 and on both of us could not have hated life more. I have to give my legs a tiny bit of cred for having (maybe) one decent mile in there. ONE! UGH!

We stopped at Dunks for emergency ice water which I proceeded to plunge many body parts into my cup and basically rub the ice all over myself. In the middle of the store. It was very, very sexy. NOT.

Topics covered: How not to behave in public, how to get sponsored by an amazing running clothing store (um, by behaving better in public perhaps?) How Danielle should push me home in a shopping cart, how neither of us would notice or mind if the other one peed in her shorts- but how the each of us would mind the feeling of having urine soaked shorts.

OMG. We are so awesome.

At the end of the run we had to sneak in something silly like 0.3 miles, which we did by running around and around and around at the end of a road, making airplane arms on the turns. WHY!!? Why.... Oh right, because we are awesome.

Topics Covered by my inner monologue in the last 1 mile: I CAN NOT TAKE ONE MORE STEP. (but could I run 4 more miles if I absolutely needed to.....? yes. but they would EFFING HURT!)

And the normal stuff like;  I wonder if I'm going to throw up? dammit my feet are killing me, how does Danielle's hair manage to look so good after all that??, my clothes are so sweaty that I feel like I have been swimming, are we done? NO.. Are we DONE? NO!!! Are We Done....?? YES....

Holy crapola kids, we look freaking amazing in this picture.
This is why hot running clothes companies should send us merch to pimp...
22 miles of death and still rocking the fashion!
As good as we looked I don't think either of us felt very well.......

Because this happened.
Dead.
Hate Life.
But we are still sexy.

Danielle announced that she was going to drink so much water that she would probably throw up.
I suggested sitting in an ice bath and drinking it thru a straw. Then I was grossed out.
She lay down to die.
I sat down to focus on imminent death and or violent hurling.

I left to die alone and then this happened.

The aftermath: I awoke this morning feeling like I had been hit by a truck and run over several times. The Plan called for 6 recovery miles and I had to call it a day at mile 4 because I was a complete strugglebus. I might have cried.

Luckily 4 bottles of water and a fistful of Advil later I had improved somewhat.

I got a text from Danielle, who basically NEVER feels pain saying that she was still iffy too. I was glad that I wasn't alone in my anguish (although by 2 PM she was texting me to man the eff up and eat some ice cream. dude, I'm lactose intolerant...come on.... :-))

I like this text very much.
We are totally talking ourselves into it, HAH!!

So at this point that's it. Taper time is here and what's done is done. Both of us have made it to this point with only a few bouts of hysteria (mostly mine...) a few broken legs (mostly mine...) and a bunch of man the eff up texts (mostly Danielle's to me....)

19 days... OMG.