Where was this three months ago?

Well this is just rude.

If you buy $100 worth of Brooks gear in the next month, you get to use a special bathroom at the starting line. And let me be honest here: My biggest fear about this race is not whether or not I'll get winded, or have my shoe lace come untied,* or get a leg cramp (knock on wood), it's that I'll have to pee. Apparently there's this weird rule that even if you stop to pee, the clock keeps running. Dumb. So of course I want to pee RIGHTBEFOREISTART but I don't like standing in lines and I'm worried I'll be there waiting and the race will start and I'll be lost and these are the kinds of things that keep me up at night. I know, I have a good life, I never said otherwise.

Anyways, of course I totally want to have my own special VIP bathroom but hello? I bought my $100 Brooks shoes three months ago. Who buys new shoes a month before the race? Dumb. Although it is safe to say that I will end up buying the exact same pair of Brooks Adrenalines that I've been buying since high school some time in the near future. Every time I get fitted at a running store, I end up with the exact same pair of shoes. Not even intentionally. I didn't even realize it until this most recent pair, because I'm not a particularly observant person.

My trusty sole mates. Ha. Oof, that was bad. Sorry 'bout it.

Although if I was really in the mood to spend some dough, I would totally splurge on these. I've been craving a pair of obnoxious-looking sneakers forever but haven't been able to justify the money. Maybe I could justify it now that I know they would also buy me a ticket to a race day bathroom with a short line?

Love.

I can't believe I just ranted about VIP port-a-potties. Ew. This training is getting to me.

*Apparently the clock-doesn't-stop-when-you-pee rule also applies to shoe laces. I ran a local 5k race tonight and my shoe lace came untied right after I finished mile 2. Sweet. I just ignored it and kept going. This woman behind me yelled up, "Hey! Your right shoe lace is kind of dragging!" right as we were getting close to mile 3 and I just yelled back, "I know! Thanks!" I'm trying to not take four hours to finish, ok? And I already talked to the race director and he said if I stop to tie my shoe he refuses to adjust my time. I don't qualify for any special rules. Lame. But thanks!

Whatever. It paid off. I PR'ed. :)

Gimme a moment, will ya?

Thumbs down for crappy race performance.

 You know those phases when everything isn't sucking big time and everything feels really exciting and new and you think to yourself "Rah rah rah! Life is so fun!" because you're curled up on a couch at 6am having some monumental conversation with someone and realizing you're not the only batshit crazy person out there? Or you're driving down the turnpike after a huge storm and the sun comes out and makes the road all glisten-y and you're all like "Wow! Life is so beautiful!"
You know those moments? Those moments that are kind of dumb when you analyze them but are really sweet at the time?

I'll just stop now before you vom over how warm and fuzzy this is.

What I actually wanted to say was, I haven't had those kinds of moments lately. I've been feeling kinda crumby. Remember that race I had to do a couple weeks ago? It was mis-er-able. I have never felt so awful while running EVER in my entire life. Not even that time at field hockey try outs in ninth grade when they told us we had to run a 7:30 mile to make the team and my previous best time was lingering around the 8:20 slow-poke region (so I felt like death and "sprinted" my ass off and ran it in 7:30 and made the team. phew. now excuse me while I ralph my diluted gatorade.)

Anyways, it was a million degrees the night of the race, the course was hilly (well, hilly in comparison to all of the 1% incline treadmill running I'd been doing) and not only did I NOT beat my previous 5k time from before I started my half training, I added about an hour and a half to it. (Exaggeration, but might as well be.) Oh oh, and I had stayed home sick from work the two days before because I legit felt like I had lymes disease (I don't) or something -- achy and more exhausted than I've ever been.

So the odds were against me and yadda yadda yadda but I finished and was really freaking bummed that I didn't run better. I pouted for awhile and drank 3 bottles of water and ate some pineapple and grimaced at all the medalers who finished the race in under 16 minutes. (WTF didn't anyone tell you crazy people it's 92 degrees outside with 50% humidity??) I was down. But then I got a sudden wave of relief because I realized that this race didn't really matter and thank God I messed up this one and not the big race. I know my eats were HORRIBLE the days before and I hadn't been training outside at ALL, so I immediately resolved to start working harder. Well actually I had another week of craptastic runs and eating habits and THEN I started being better. And I've made the following adjustments:
-Don't eat lots of crappy foods. They make running completely miserable.
-Go back to rotating my running surface: road/treadmill/trail/track
-Stop getting hung up on pace and run times. It puts me in a bad mood and when I'm in a bad mood I run even worse and then I get angry for running slow and get in an even worse mood and then I run slower and (do you see the vicious cycle?)

And do you know what? Earlier this morning after I finished my four mile easy run, I was walking down the street to my house and the sun was filtering through the leaves and the sky was really blue and I thought to myself, "Wow! Life is so beautiful!"

Thumbs up for a Mr. Rogers-style beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Small problem.

This weather report is a bit of an issue. Wednesday in particular. 91 degrees and humid?  

Not ok.

I'm running this 5k on Wednesday night after work, and, you see, I'm kind of a spoiled exerciser. I only run outside if the temperature is juuuussstttt right and there's no traffic and it's not getting too dark and there aren't any threatening-looking men standing near by and there is zero humidity and, well, I'm a diva. I'll admit it.

That's why I have a gym membership. No excuses. It's lit and air conditioned and I pay way too much money to not use it and sometimes there are threatening-looking men standing nearby, but then I can just turn to them and say, "Excuse me, sir? The entire mat is empty, save for this small corner I'm using to do deadlifts and shoulder presses, so do you think you could move more than two feet away from me to stretch your hip flexors? Thank you." (Some guy really did do this to me last week. But I'm scared of confrontation so I didn't say anything. It was really uncomfortable, though.)

So what's a diva like me to do when she's already signed up and paid her 25 bucks to run a race in hellish weather? Suck it up, I guess, and look forward to losing six pounds in sweat. Why hello there, silver lining.

A little bit obsessive.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a compulsive researcher. It takes 10 hours of reading Sephora reviews before I decide what shampoo to buy. When I bought a car last summer? Oh Christ, you don't even want to know. It was repulsive how much I read about cars. My mom was ready to shoot me if I brought up transmissions and gas mileage and automatic windows at the dinner table.

Hobbies are good for the soul. It's good to have something specific to think about that isn't work and finances and the future and all that depressing crap.

So lately all my attention is focused on training for this:

Meaning my mom now wants to shoot me when I talk about pacing and cross training and crying about IT band issues. Meaning I spend nearly all of my free time reading Runner's World and obsessively researching every little ounce of pain I experience to make sure that it isn't a stress fracture. Stress fractures are my biggest fear in life. God, they're terrifying to even think about.

The race is September 18th and I'm already beginning to threaten people's lives if they don't show up to spectate. I mean, I know watching a race isn't exactly thrilling to everyone.
...So bring a flask. Anyone who knows me knows there's nothing I find more fulfilling than being the center of attention. I love a good ego boost. So basically I'm saying I'll probably run ten times faster if there are people I know lining the streets of the course, and you want that for me, riiigghtt?