catheroominations

Look what I did on the way to work:

I’m fine, aside from a few aches and pains in my neck and back. My car, as you can see, is not fine, and I will not have it for about 3 weeks.

Until today I’d never caused an accident. I looked down for a minute, while I was in stop and go traffic, and traffic came to a STOP while I was still in GO mode. Unlike most days, I was not drinking hot coffee at the time. I was also not talking on the phone, putting on makeup, eating, texting, or adjusting the radio. I was looking at the dashboard. Or something. I don’t even know what caught my attention and took it from the road, but when I saw how close the monstrous SUV was, I slammed on the brakes and watched my hood crinkle up toward me. And then I said fuck. Which was probably louder than the crash.

The girl I hit was very nice and had the cutest red patent leather Mary Janes I have ever seen. I wanted to tell her that…”So, I’m not going to apologize for hitting you because that’s the last thing I’m supposed to do, but I will say that your shoes are adorable. Please don’t sue me or anything, K?” Seriously though, there were just a few scrapes on her bumper. Thank goodness.

We did all our official business, filed a police report, got a tow to the body shop, and now my car is waiting for a full tear-down to see if it can be fixed. If it can’t be fixed, I’m getting an SUV, dammit.

I’m going to Disneyland to run another half marathon!

If I had to sum up yesterday’s Kaiser Half Marathon Typhoon Kaiser in San Francisco in one word it would be awesome. Or cold. Or rainy. Oh, and windy. Hard, duh. And painful. Or far. And exhausting. Yet exhilarating. And exciting. Also emotional. And incredible. Any of those would be the right answer.

Most of this won’t be interesting to anyone, but I feel the need to document it, for me. I apologize for rambling on and on about me, but here I go anyway.

keep reading Catheroo, you just ran your first half marathon. Whaddya gonna do now?

I did it!

I’ll post more detail later. Right now, I can’t think straight enough to type.

Oh! My Half Marathon playlist runneth over! For realz! I got so many songs, I had to narrow down my choices and have just one per submitter, so I could fit everyone! Seriously, y’all rock. I got about 30 emails’ worth of songs too, so I now have enough to last me almost 5 hours. Hopefully I won’t need to hear all of them.

By the way, even if I don’t like a song someone suggested, I added it to the playlist. Because it was important to them that I play the song. I told one friend, “I’ll be sure to notice at what mile your song comes on and I’ll recall later that that mile sucked ass because the song totally bit.”

If you want to see what I’m running to, you can see the list here. Some songs just plain rock and have a great beat. Others have sentimental value, or inspiring lyrics or titles.

With such great music, I’m sure to have a great Half Marathon! Hell, I might keep running past the finish line just to keep listening! (Or not.)

Special thanks to blog babes Ali, Mere, Tobie, Annie, Jenni (and I even added Vika’s suggestion!), Music Mama (even though I couldn’t find the songs online), Sandi, Saj, and distractedspunk.

*That’s a song by ABBA, but is too slow to run to.

Even though that bit of wisdom was on the inside of my Dove Milk Chocolate today, I don’t think it meant, “Think you can only eat 5 of these? Go ahead, eat more! Keep going! You can DO IT!” Seriously, I don’t need a fortune to tell me to eat more chocolate, but it’s nice to have the permission to do so. (I refrained, by the way. The chocolate, he will not win!)

BUT! I did take the sentiment to heart, with regard to my upcoming half marathon on Sunday. Sure, I’ve never run 13.1 miles before. My limit is 10 miles. That’s as far as I go. Ten. That’s it. But on Sunday, at mile 10, I will keep going because 1) awesome people have donated over $3,000 to the cause, in good faith that I will actually complete this endurance event for which I solicited donations, 2) I want a freaking medal, 3) my husband, my friends, and perfect strangers will be cheering for me as I pass them on the course and 4) I want to run farther than I’ve ever run before. Ever.

Yes, I want to run the distance of Manhattan from tip to tip. I want to pound the pavement running around Golden Gate Park for nearly 3 hours (and hopefully stay under that time, please, oh please). It might be raining. It will be cold. At times, I will rather be on my couch in my jammie pants and slippers under the soft and fuzzy Green Bay Packer blanket, playing Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii, while eating Dove dark chocolates and sipping Murrieta’s Well Zarzeula. But instead of jammie pants, there will be panting. Instead of slippers, Brooks running shoes. My black running pants and official TNT race shirt will keep me warm and toasty, and I will be playing my iPod. Chocolate and wine will be replaced by Jelly Belly Sports Beans and Gatorade.

And when I am done, when I have crossed the finish line, there will be tears.* Tears of joy, of pain, of relief. Tears that say, “Sweet Baby Jeebus, I did it!” Also, possibly tears of not receiving a medal because I ran slower than 6,000 people and those tears will say “I ran a @#$%ing half marathon and all I @#$%ing got was this @#$%ing stupid @#$%ing t-shirt. @#$%ing @#$%!!”

I am ready.

*Coincidentally, this also often happens while I play Super Mario Galaxy.

I ran 10 miles for the second time yesterday. This time I hardly walked at all, except for the 1-minute walk portion of my 5-mile run, 1-minute walk interval. I ran with a TNT teammate, we took it very slow, and we took a LONG time. I run like a snail, I really do. This concerns me because only the first 6,000 finishers receive medals at the half marathon I am running IN TWO WEEKS. They allow 10,000 to register. That means, I have to run faster than FOUR THOUSAND PEOPLE. Not going to happen, nope.

It should be noted that I have never won a medal, trophy, or ribbon in anything, except for a First Place prize that everyone in my 5th grade class got who submitted a book for the elementary school young author’s book fair. And that ribbon was a piece of blue “ditto” paper, cut into the shape of a ribbon, pasted to the inside front cover of The True Story of Smokey, my cat. Around that time there were several unauthorized autobiographies about him, but I wrote the truth.

Now where was I? Oh. Yeah. I want a freaking medal for running 13.1 miles, dammit. Just knowing that I completed such an event should be validation enough for me, but it isn’t. I want concrete, material evidence of my efforts! Bragging rights! So I can be all, “Look what I did! I have a medal! Do you have any half marathon medals? No? I must be better than you then!” I would then huff hot air on it and polish it on my shirt for effect. Also, if I get a medal, it means I did not come in last, which is something that is unacceptable to me. I hate don’t mind that I’m slow, or that I am the last person to finish a timed trial at our workouts. There are just 40 or so people there, and most of them have done this whole running thing for years. But out of thousands of people, surely there should be a few slower than I, right? I mean, I have to be faster than the walkers, don’t I? Please, can 4,000 people be walking that day?

Maybe I should look into buying those shoes with skates on the bottom. Heelies? Is that what they’re called? Maybe then I’ll gain some speed on these people.

Maybe Barry Bonds can juice me up before, since I will be in San Francisco and all.

I know! Have Taye Diggs running ahead of me in nothing but black boxer briefs, and Dexter chasing after me with a hypodermic needle and cranial saw. Then, maybe I can run faster. Maybe.

Ooh! I could put Ex-Lax in the water at the hydration stations. Scratch that. It’s just mean. Plus, it could backfire because I would probably need the facilities at some point, and the lines would be insane, thus extending my time even more.

Le sigh.

Perhaps I should hail a cab and ride to near the end of the course, and then sprint across the finish line, all fresh and lovely like Katie Holmes did in New York. (NOTE: I’m saying she finished looking lovely, not accusing her of taking a cab or being transported by Xenu-led aliens or anything.)

Did you know that the winning team in the Super Bowl gets a trophy AND each player gets a big, huge, gaudy ring, even those who DID NOT PLAY in the game? And some of the players already have a ring or two. Award hogs! Can’t there be a rule at this half marathon where those who already have medals wait until medals are presented to all who have never received one? That seems totally fair to me. Were I one of those people with piles of medals, I would surely offer mine to a poor soul who ran too slowly in her first half marathon to beat four thousand other runners. Because I’m nice like that.