It's All Relative

Q: Since when is running 15 miles no big deal?
A: Tomorrow morning.

My marathon training schedule calls for a 15 miler in the a.m. (I better make this a short post so I can get to bed), but it's going to feel slightly inferior and inadequate to the rest of the weekend. Dare I say I'll be embarrassed if I tell people this weekend that's all I did? Here's why - after my run with Dana and Kris we're heading down to Madison for the ultimate in athletic endurance. Kimmi and Rachel will be conquering the Ironman Triathlon on Sunday and we're going to cheer them on! Being around 2,000 Ironman-caliber triathletes will put my 15 miler to shame. It's going to be a great spectacle to watch and hopefully provide some more motivation to continue down this athletic path.

I don't think an Ironman is in my future within the next 3-5 years, but maybe someday. I'll either A. have to get married again so I have a spouse to take care of the kids while I'm training 4-6 hours per day on top of a full time job or B. wait until the kids are older and more independent so I can somewhat justify the 4-6 hours of training. B is a safer bet on the more likely scenario.

The last quarter of the marathon is what I'm most interested in watching. I hope K and R don't read the rest of this - Ladies, if you are reading this, log off now. Okay, now that we've gotten rid of them, have you ever seen the end of an endurance race where someone's body just starts to shut down, they start to weave and stumble and just get all zombie-ish? During Ragnar we were waiting for our 3rd runner to come in. It was the longest leg of the entire race, 9.5 miles, and it was starting to get pretty hot and humid, right around noon. A couple of times on this portion we saw a runner that was looking great - long, smooth, effortless strides, and fast - passing other runners one after the other - a few people were commenting on how good she looked. Near the end of this leg was a short, but steep hill. We were waiting at the exchange for Becky (our teammate) to come in when I saw this good runner crest the hill. Both the girl standing next to me and I commented on how impressed we were with her. Just then she faltered. She stopped running, arms were straight down (okay, maybe not zombie-ish since theirs are usually straight out), slouched over, started stumbling and almost fell. A couple of us ran out to grab her to help her in. She had pretty obviously ran too hard given the conditions and dehydrated and overheated. That was my first time witnessing that in person and it was kinda freaky. The weather will be cooler on Sunday for the triathlon, but with how far (140.3 miles) these triathletes will travel and how long (the pros will finish in just over 8 hours while some amatuers will be out there for 17) they'll be continuously pushing their bodies, there's bound to be some racers majorly hitting the wall. I'm certainly not wishing for it to happen, but it'll be interesting to watch.
Since I know you didn't heed my warning Kimmi and Rachel and still read this, I know it won't happen to you 2 though. You've done everything right to get here (not counting a certain bike crash early in the season) and are out there to enjoy the experience. The things some people will do for a little fun in their life!

Good luck girls, and everyone else doing any racing this weekend!

Now, off to bed so I can rest up for my lazy-ass 15 mile run. :)