I Ran 10 Miles and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt

I feel lame finally getting around to posting this when it happened....oh, three weeks ago. But I ran the Cherry Blossom 10-miler and ROCKED it, baby. My goal was 1:40, and I made it in 1:44.15. No, that wasn't my goal, but one, it was FOUR MINUTES off my goal vs. the 18 minutes I was off when I did the half-marathon, and two, I was strong the whole way through and finished sprinting. Oh, and did I mention it was totally pouring?

It feels cheating to post these two snippets rather than create original thoughts about the experience from scratch, but I'm doing it anyway, because I've been lazy about updating until I got this out of the way. After the race, for about a week, I was just so PUMPED and happy in a way that defies mere words. Then, two things I read summed up my feelings. The first was my post after the half-marathon (May 2007):

"This is, bar none, the thing I am most proud of in my whole life. I have this annoying tendency to always qualify achievements. Anything anybody finds remotely impressive, I always downplay. "Yeah, I got a master's degree from Columbia...but it was just two classes at a time and everybody can get into their master's program." (I do still think that, and it's not just Melinda Doolittle-esque modesty trying to get people to tell me I'm wrong.) "Sorry, I'm busy tomorrow, I'm doing a half-marathon. But don't get too impressed, I'm sure I won't finish!" (And yes, I DID email that to more than one person, again in all seriousness.) But there's no way I can tear down the fact I ran 13 freaking miles, try as I might. It's an incredibly unfamiliar, yet totally awesome feeling. I can't stop smiling."

Then, I was reading Runner's World (I don't even recognize myself anymore, reading sports magazies! Nay, SUBSCRIBING to them!) and came across an article about a guy who ran an ultramarathon (100 miles!):

"My time: 23 hours 48 minutes. At the finish, I vowed I'd never run that far again; a promise that even now, a few years later, I've had little desire to break. But I was suffused with this warm sense of overwhelming fulfillment. In one day, I'd totally rejiggered how I calculated my abilities and weaknesses. What I'm trying to say, maudlin or not, is that I was deeply happy."

And really, I can't say it any better than that.

Blossom Blast 2008

My bag is packed, my breakfast items are picked out...I'm ready to get up at 5 a.m. and run 10 miles, baby! In honor of the event, I frantically threw together a last-minute mix to keep me surprised so it's not the same old songs one after the other...don't judge, you all like your crappy songs, admit it!

* Eye of the Tiger, Survivor (keeps playing in my head as I envision myself being successful tomorrow)
* A Peak You Reach, Badly Drawn Boy
* Expectations, Belle & Sebastian
* Deja Vu, Beyonce
* Dancing in the Dark, Bruce Springsteen
* Modern Love, David Bowie
* Theme from Cheerleader Nation (shut up, it's motivational!), this Lifetime reality show from 2006
* Atomic, Blondie
* Airline to Heaven, Billy Bragg & Wilco (my all-time favorite running song, must be on EVERY mix I do)
* The Ballad of John & Yoko, Beatles
* Ever Fallen in Love?, the Buzzcocks
* Mirror in the Bathroom, English Beat
* I Ran, Flock of Seagulls (come ON!, I had to do this one!)
* Blimps Go 90, Guided by Voices
* Now That We Found Love, Heavy D and the Boyz
* When the Man Comes Around, Johnny Cash
* Been Caught Stealing, Jane's Addiction
* And We Danced, the Hooters
* Daughters of the Kaos, Lucious Jackson
* Turn to the Sky, March Violets (from Some Kind of Wonderful)
* Frankly, Mr. Shankly, the Smiths
* Ana Ng, They Might be Giants
* Cornflake Girl, Tori Amos
* Things That Scare Me, Neko Case
* Jump!, Van Halen
* Scorpio Rising, 10,000 Maniacs
* Rok the House, some random group (I heard the song in aerobics today and frantically downloaded it, cause I loved it)
* Superman, R.E.M. (I can do anything! talk about motivational!)
* Washington DC, Magnetic Fields (hey, it IS the DC Cherry Blossom 10-miler...sort of a tribute to my home city as I race to the finish line!)

My goal is 100 minutes, and the mix is 110 just because when the gun goes off, there's a lot of shuffling along before actual running begins. More after the race...if I am able to do more than hobble to my couch.

The Years Go By

In honor of my mom's birthday today, my sister and I planned to make her frosted cookies. Somehow that evolved into "Amy makes cookies and Karen waltzes in 20 minutes before it's over" [I'm kidding! Fighting crime/negligence as a juror on a civil trial is pretty much a foolproof excuse], but it's all good. Because they ROCK. And they're so pretty, too!

I'm sort of at a loss about how to process the fact that my mom is SIXTY. And I'm going to be THIRTY-FIVE in a few months. Actually, that part's no big deal; I've made my peace with getting old. I'm actually digging it, really. (I may change my mind when I start finding it harder to work out, etc, and I physically slow down, but for now it's all good.) There's something to be said for feeling a sense of history and connection to the past. I like remembering how things "used to be," and I'm not yet so old that I am grumpy about it. I just find it hilarious.

However, I AM mildly weirded out to think that when I was in the fifth grade, my mom was the age I am now. THAT still seems strange.