This is what happened:
I woke up this morning with butterflies. Today was not only my first day of summer training for my eventual Senior Cross Country season, but at four o’clock, I would be trekking my way over to an unfamiliar Friendlies -preparation to run four miles and cleanse my stomach of the eventual shit [i.e. doughnuts, Pepsi] that would coat it.
Honestly, I was terrified that the Second Annual Munchy Marathon would leave me stranded on the side of a road in a town 40 minutes away, puking my brains out in the name of good fun.
I’m not one to back down from a challenge. I am competitive to a fault, so obviously the idea of junk food and running until I die would have this unnecessary masochistic appeal. It combined two things I am good at: running and ingesting food at an alarming rate. The attraction only increased when I learned that there would be a trophy involved, as well as an afternoon spent with skinny runners experiencing equal amounts of pain. And the topper: it was hosted by Andrew the Libra and would provide an excellent ground for redemption; a.k.a. getting back for the unnecessary comments he left on my Facebook wall. Little did he know that his trash talk was only fuel for the fire, and I approached the race thinking that, even if I didn’t beat him, the least I could do was vomit on his running shoes or spill some Fribble all over his uniform. *Side note. I didn’t actually go into this race planning on leaving him in the dust. I don’t even think I was mad at him. I just wanted to finish. Like I said, I was terrified.
So around 12:30 this afternoon, I crossed the border into Nassau for MM pregame: hanging out with Taylor and generally acting like fools as we waited for four to come around.
We sat at her kitchen table; being a good hostess, she offered me food, obviously not expecting me to accept anything that could potentially harm my chances of finishing the race. While I denied the marshmallows, I plowed through an entire container of blueberries, attempted to eat a mango, and finished everything off with a few pretzels. While it may not have seemed like a lot, I prefer to give myself a two hour layover from the last food I eat until running time, especially on days when I don’t want to feel like shit. However, this was an hour before game time. An hour.
The only difference that it would make would be the color of my puke, so I guess it really did nothing.
After being picked up by, we headed over to Andrew the Libra’s house. Passing under every traffic light on Sunrise Highway, this heightened sense of dread grew somewhere in my stomach. I am fairly certain that I was more nervous entering this “race” than I was at Sates and Nationals combined.
I stood awkwardly in his backyard. I was a stranger amongst best friends, and I could feel a certain glare from a Girl Whose Name I Won’t Mention. In addition, the blacktop was getting hotter every fifteen seconds -the combination of my uneasy body and the heat made for an unfortunate prerace ceremony. No warm up, not stretching, no strides. Just the fateful walk to Friendlies, where I stripped off my shirt and nervously waited for my small vanilla Fribble.
After a small toast, the “gun” [a three, two, one, GO sort of situation] went off and the first guy was done with his drink sub 10 seconds. Which is intimidating when you are soft and out of shape. And half his size. So down went the rest of the milkshake and to my surprise, I was the third of fourth person sprinting back to Andrew’s house for two doughnuts and a glass of milk.
It all went down easy enough. The less you chewed and more you focused on getting out of the gate, things got slightly better. The 3/4 mile sprint from there to the school was bearable, but the Cinnabon and Pepsi was another story. At this point, I was covered in spilled Fribble and doughnut residue. My hands were coated in sweat, sunscreen, and sugar, and scarfing down another baked good was one of the most degrading experiences of my life.
But I didn’t vomit.
I raced out of the gate, following an unsuspecting, unnamed male runner to the next check point. This section of the race was about a mile and the perfect opportunity for me to get lost, which was my main concern at this point. If I was going to eat that much crap, I wanted to run the least distance possible. If it meant having to wait on the sidewalk for another runner who knew where they were going, so be it. In the time between the Cinnabon and the finish, including thirty spins with a broom on my forehead and a total of three miles every step me wanting to die, I stopped three times not to catch my breath or empty my stomach, but to wait for the poor kids [most likely dry heaving at this point] behind me who actually knew where they were going. Because of this, I must have lost three or four places, shooting me back to ninth overall.
But I finished [in front of Andrew the Libra: redemption complete.] And everything was still in mah belly. I was given a trophy, medal, and “Certificating of Death Conquering,” which will soon be framed above my bed. This moment in my life will rank far above graduating college, giving birth, and my off spring learning how to ride a bike.
And it was a lot more rewarding than winning Nationals.
