Dream killing run!

Well, I guess I'll have to revise my theory on the step-back week because Kristin and I stepped back so far this weekend we almost stepped off the planet. There is no way General Mills plans on giving us our own cereal box EVER after "the run that makes you scary to yourself and others" this past weekend. Of course in the above picture we were still naive.

Kristin and I have been scheming with our friends about a girls weekend away. Kristin, Me, Elaine, Renee, Vicky, and Colleen went to the Richards family cabin this past weekend. We had a ridiculously good time. There was no sleeping allowed, you must stuff your face with every artery-clogging food you ever dreamed of, and of course hours of free therapy with good friends who love you, even your weirdo stuff. You know it's an official break from eating healthy when you start dipping chocolate raspberry sticks into the carmel to eat them. By the end of the weekend, we were pouring Vicky's sinful carmel on even our breakfast eggs. Let's be honest here- Kristin was just eating it off a spoon by the end, and I was dipping those 1 gazillion calorie Ferrero Rochers. If Dr Phil had had a camera on, he would have whisked us all off to LA by this point to discuss our ravenous-wolf meets starving-refugee eating, as well as our "childhood wounds" that would probably needs TEAMS of psychologists to sort out.... and then write fascinating new text books on it all. So yes- it was FANTABULOUSO!!!!

Kristin and I of course had to negotiate how and when to do our long run for days prior because of the party lifestyle. We decided to do it Sunday night when we got home. While we were there we did our cross training walk. Our friends all watched us complain as we put on our work-out clothes, seriously- how weird that the altitude made them shrink. Crazy stuff. But we had a beautiful walk right at sunset. The sky was the most gorgeous shades of purple and blue and even pink. We had all new victims to psycho-analyze while exercising, which is a nice break from ourselves. It was a great workout!!! Who knew that the dream-crushing long run was on the horizon as well?

Sunday arrived and after a long weekend of serious exertion (mainly walking upstairs to bed, and eating to the point we thought crossing the cattle guards might cause them to collapse), we headed home. It has been so Hades-hot this week. We decided to run around 8 pm. Not late enough my dear readers, not even close to late enough. Truly- even Kristin admitted to running her AC. Poor little Matt must feel like he lives in one of the ten circles of hell it has to be so hot in that house. "Your hell is to live with one hot Chica- but in one seriously hot house!" I would melt like the wicked witch that I am in there. ANYWAY.... the run sucked. Seriously sucked. We were panting like sick dogs before we got out of the driveway. Kristin who weighs about 200 pounds less than me said, "I feel like my body is so heavy." I, meanwhile, was trying to not do a good impression of a runner who ate like a crazy person for 3 days, had no sleep, and now decided to top it off by puking on the side of the trail. Other walkers usually don't like that. It was all we could do to keep moving. I think we walked more than we ran. And seriously- you could not have called that running, it was shuffling. At one point we were trying to run past a family taking a sweet little Sunday stroll on the trail, just enjoying each other and nature. We crawled past, loudly complaining about all the space they were taking up, and wanting their little kids to MOVE IT. Stop looking so NOT sweaty and so happy you big jerks! It was not pretty.

Then, the next plague arrived.... swarms of locusts. Ok, maybe they weren't locusts, but there were swarms. They were thick enough I'm sure the Israelites would have agreed they were BAD! Kristin began running doing a continuous large scissor motion with her arms. That only made us look more pathetic, desperately sweaty, and more than a little mentally unstable. I was laughing so hard I'm sure we looked like arm swinging, trail weaving, hyena laughing drunks. But hey- I'll be honest, Kristin was swatting a huge number of bugs for both of us with her arms, and I thought she deserved a medal for her courageous lack of "shut-up and don't look at me like that, this run sucks, ok" heroism. Then....one bug made it through her helicopter arms and went straight into her air-sucking mouth. I seriously wish I had a video for you. Describing what happened next will do it no justice. She stopped running abruptly, her hands went to her throat, and she started gagging/choking, while jumping up and down and her eyes googling out. She started trying to get the locust out of her mouth with her hands, but then resorted quickly to one large spit..... which landed directly on her thigh. She started yelling and trying to get the spit-drowning locust off her leg, which required a complicated dance. I was not about to offer help- it was the only fun part of the run, and I'll be honest, I needed the laugh. I think others on the trail were considering calling the police. We decided it would be best to keep moving while she recovered. After leaving the scene of the crime, Kristin commented while STILL spitting occasionally that she thought she still had a bug leg in there somewhere. At least the spitting was practiced enough at this point she wasn't hitting herself. We decided that if Larry ran by at any point of this run, we would trip him. As soon as my watch beeped 7 miles, we yelled "finally!" and "about time!" at the inanimate object and sulked as we walked the last bit home. We didn't do a cool-down, or blow-by-blow review of the run, we just said "that sucked" and we each went home.I layed on the floor icing everything I could think of and demanding Adam fetch me things for about an hour and a half. Every few minutes Adam would cautiously ask.... "what went wrong?" "It sucked. That's it, every aspect of it sucked. " Everything hurt! Eventually he helped me to crawl to the bed and get in it and I slept all sweaty and disgusting for 11 hours straight. Pretty as a princess too, I'm sure.

So, the plan for tonight is to get out my medal for just finishing my first marathon and take turns wearing it, pretending we are crossing the finish line, and convincing ourselves that run NEVER HAPPENED!!!!