Suffering is optional

2005-06-12 - 5:43 p.m.

I'm back! I just got home from running a half marathon. What fun! Am I nuts or what? I never thought I would find this sort of thing to be fun. I finished this one exactly five minutes faster than my previous one. 2:06:38. That's a 9:40 pace. Nice! I didn't make my two hour goal, but I didn't do too shabbily either, so I'm happy.

So I spent the whole weekend with Kitten and that went pretty well, too. She came over at 11am yesterday and then I drove us over to Port Angeles. We picked up our race numbers and then went out to lunch at an Indian restaurant. Then we went and checked into our hotel room, but it didn't have a fridge for our lunch leftovers so the front desk people let us keep our stuff in the staff fridge. That was nice, wasn't it? When we decided to have our leftovers for dinner at around 8ish they went and got it for us and then we snuck into their little cafeteria area where they usually serve breakfast and used their microwave and plates and silverware. Heh heh, that was fun.

I also found out that I'm a bit more modest than most people. For example, this morning I came out of the bathroom after showering, fully clothed (or at least fully covered) only to find Kitten there topless. I turned right back around back into the bathroom. She didn't seem to care at all, though. And yesterday when we arrived in Port Angeles, she announced that she had forgotten her pill (I'm so dumb, it took me a while to realize she meant birth control), could we stop by a Walgreens so she could have her prescription refilled? Obviously I didn't mind stopping by the pharmacy, but for some reason I was a bit shocked that she would be so open about birth control pills. I swear, I'm such a prude! And then after the race today they gave us coupons for a free shower down at the YMCA. Oh man, naked women everywhere. That was the fastest shower I've ever taken.

But anyway, the race itself was lovely. The aid stations were well organized, the shirts they gave us are awesome (I'm in love with mine--long-sleeved and made out of racing material), the medals are cool, they had plenty of yummy food at the end, and the course was beautiful. The last 4 miles were less than 50 feet from the water (right along the Strait of Juan de Fuca) and the rest of it was on a trail through mostly wooded areas. My only complaint is hills! Oh my goodness! Ugh!

I'm feeling good now. It's a nice feeling of accomplishment, even though I didn't really accomplish anything. My only problem now is my post-race intestinal purge...which you really don't need to know about.