Happy Monday everyone! It’s officially November now, and I gotta tell ya I decided to end October without a minute of free time… what a crazy weekend! Here’s the run-down of how everything went down w/ my race, as well as other things worth pointing out:
MONSTER DASH 5K – So, I started out the weekend doing my 3rd 5K, this one in Point Pleasant, NJ (ohhh yeeaaahhhh, Jersey Shore yeeaaahhhh!). I got to run this one with with my friends Nancy and Courtney… Nancy (as you may remember) ran my first 5K with me, and Courtney and I have not seen each other in somewhere around SEVENTEEN YEARS. Outside of me, everyone I know from way back when has aged so well… they all look simply AMAZING, and these two are arguably at the top of that list. These women are a testament to the rewards healthy living can produce. Totally more motivation for sure.
I set a personal best time of 38:52, a full SIX MINUTES faster than my 5K last week… WOOOOOO HOOOOOO!!!!!!!! Or is it? See, no one ‘improves’ that quickly… to knock six minutes off of your time in 7 days? Just doesn’t happen… well, unless you weren’t pushing yourself hard enough 7 days ago. It’s four minutes better than my first 5K on Labor Day and that definitely seems to be a more reasonable estimation on my progress.
At the end of the race, I have never been more tired in my life. Ever. Period. I was exhausted. But that was only because apparently, in honor of the race being for Halloween, I ran with the Devil. This Devil took the form of Nancy. I had no idea we were doing this race in costume until the starter yelled ‘Go!’ and the pace she decided to have me keep was unlike anything I had tried before. 1st mile – 11 minutes. ELEVEN MINUTES. She’s barely breathing heavy, while I’m glad this race benefits the Point Pleasant EMS, because at this point I’m gonna need them. 2nd mile – 13 minutes. THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN! Once we hit 2 miles, I had to stop, something I had not done in any of my previous 2 races. I was totally dejected. Embarrassed. Disappointed. ANGRY. Can’t believe that all of my hard work has led to me THIS.
At this point, Nancy sees MY costume – deranged psycho lunatic – and does her best Jamie Lee Curtis impression… runs like hell away from the deranged psycho lunatic. She picks up her pace to finish strong for her last mile, and I am just trying to figure out if I’m gonna be able to finish AT ALL. I started running again the same time Nancy did, just at a slower pace which I can manage. I see the finish line… and then I see the time. All I remembered at first was ‘Is that a “3”?!?!?’ I was so devastated that I stopped and re-started I had no idea that, by doing it this way, I would shatter my personal best. The 3 motivates me to finish strong and I feel much better about what just transpired. In fact, all three of us set personal best times for a 5K! It was a blast seeing Courtney and Joe (who came out simply to support us in about 40-something degree temperatures – this is the kinda support people like me need) and I am hopeful we’ll all get to do a lot more of these 5K’s together! And as for the Dev… I mean Nancy? Seriously the best running partner ever. Motivates me to push harder each time we run. There aren’t enough bedazzled T-shirts or veggie smoothies in the world that can express my thanks enough.
REILLY’S WEDDING – No rest for the weary. Literally about 5 minutes after we finish the race, Nancy and I say good-bye to Court and Joe and head back to my car. We have a wedding to get to. In Pennsylvania. That starts in about 2.5 hours. Yup – we ran a 5K in NJ that started at 10:30a then had to attend one of our best friend’s weddings in PA which began at 2:00p. Seriously, what are we gonna do instead… sleep? Drink? Nah… we’ll run a race! 🙂 So, we get to the hotel at around 12:45p and are lucky enough to get early check-in for our rooms (keep in mind we just ran a race and drove to PA… no showers. Nada.) and, as we complete check-ins and start to get the bags from the car, we see none other than the groom himself, waiting to head over to the church.
Like crazed fans seeing Justin Bieber, we get the camera and start taking pics of sweaty us with dapper Brian, then realize we’ll see enough of him later and have to run like hell to get to the church before the wedding starts. We get to our rooms and, 40 minutes later, we’ve transformed from sweaty race participants to respectable wedding attendees. We get in the car and make it to the church just a LITTLE late (7 minutes). Dammit! Reilly is NEVER anywhere on time. Now all the sudden he’s Mr. Punctual. Unbelievable! Honestly though… this was the hardest part of our day for sure (yes, I am including the fact that we just ran a 5K in that statement) and we pulled it off. Truly amazing.
The wedding was beautiful. The bride? Stunning. Brain cried… a lot. Like, its 40 hours later as I write this and I think he still may be crying. There’s simply no way in the world I can let him off easy… but that’s what friends are for, right? It was truly great seeing so many people I had not seen in years (Laz, DJ – and the whole Bolger clan, Ron, Tim etc.) as well as seeing the usual suspects, who clean up pretty well… for the most part. LMAO. Just a cool night for a great friend and the ability to reconnect with some awesome people. Congrats to Erin and Brian!
However – the biggest lesson I learned from this weekend involves alcohol and dehydration. I’ve joked in this blog before about my weight loss, combined with a major cut-down of alcohol in my life, making me feel like a 15 year old girl drinking her first wine cooler. Well, it’s compounded exponentially when you’re dehydrated. Obvious I know… but it was experienced first hand this weekend and wow was it rough. I knew that the wedding was gonna be a drinking night for me, so it’s my fault for not drinking enough water.
Or should I say not knowing how much water to drink, because I had about 4 bottles of it along with a Gatorade between the race and the reception. I thought that would be enough. Nope. My punishment? I took a 2.5 mile ‘detox’ run at Tamaques Park Sunday afternoon to sweat out all of the debauchery of the evening prior. No lie – I felt a million times better after sweating it out. I wanted to call and cancel it about 700 times, but thankfully didn’t. Another lesson learned – sweat out the nasty!
HALLOWEEN – As you noticed, not a whole lot of Halloween-y things on my agenda this weekend. Honestly? Not one of my fave holidays. I mean, I totally get the fun side of it… I just never really warmed up to it. Maybe it’s because I never had the ‘awesome’ costume, or that I had better candy all year ’round because Mom worked for a Candy Distributor when I was growing up. I don’t know. But, I do love seein’ and hearin’ about everyone elses Halloweens… and I know a TON of creative people. So get those pics up on Facebook people! 🙂 And, in honor of Halloween, I will leave you with a pic of what I would look like if I ever pull off my ultimate Halloween costume:
Blubber To Runner 