Luxembourg Half Marathon

I thought I should write this blog now before my love of running slowly dissipates and this becomes a blog of me bitching about how much pain I am in, losing toenails, having offensive body odor, etc.

This past weekend, I ran my eighth half marathon (I had to go back through and do a little headcount) in Luxembourg. Why Luxembourg? Well, why not? It was close, the course was supposed to be lovely, and I need an excuse to run. When I do not have races to complete, my desire to run is matched only by my desire to have teeth extracted. Having a race means I have to train, or I pay the price during 13.1 miles of pure and horrific agony.

I was *sort of* prepared for this race. I had been doing about an hour of hill running 3 times a week, but had not actually run a long run since Prague. The problem with long runs is that I have to wake up early and go running along the river, and while this is okay once in a while, I hate waking up early and I hate running when there are tons of people out exercising with me. Mainly because the Germans stare. They stare so much. I get all paranoid that my butt is sweating or my love handles are peaking out from above my spandex shorts--with maddening thoughts like this, it is hard to concentrate on running. All I can think about is the Pillsbury doughboy.

So needless to say, I was a tad bit nervous to run. I knew I would be good for an hour, but much beyond that, I believed that divine intervention would be the only way I would make it to the end of this race. This was also the first race I would be running alone, and I wondered how I would fare (fair?) as a solo distance runner. It was either going to be epically awesome or epically tragic.

THANK GOD it was epically awesome. STUPENDOUSLY awesome. This being my eighth half marathon, it should be said that I have never run a half marathon in under 2:20. The best time I have had was running in Salt Lake last year, at 2:21. And I was pretty stoked about that time. And I ran Prague in 2:26, which is not horrible, but it definitely was not my best showing.

Luxembourg: 2:07. 2:07!!! I could not believe it. I remember coming around the corner and seeing the 18km sign and looking down at my watch stunned. There was NO WAY the time on my watch was correct. With just 3 kms left, I was at 1:50. Holy shit balls! The excitement of realizing that I totally had just kicked that half marathon in the ass propelled me to sprint the last 3 kms. Runners high? HA! It was like I had taken a fistful of Ecstasy and chased it with Absinthe! Of course, this high feeling was squashed when I crossed the finish line, only to be bottlenecked into a tight corridor with 200 other runners who had just finished, of varying degrees of smelliness, with my legs about to give out under me and no room to move. I managed to maneuver my way through the crowd before I had a complete meltdown and beat the hell out of someone with a safety pin.

Two days later, I am still feeling pretty good about this. My goal is to run the Portland Marathon in October in 4:20 (haha) and I now think this may be an attainable goal. Who knows...I could even run it faster! And apparently, if I run the Redwood half (a week later) in under 1:50, I automatically qualify for the New York City half, which I want to run in March over my birthday.

I feel like I might be becoming a real, honest-to-God runner...and this feeling freaking rules! I remember being younger and getting pissy when I had to run longer than 2 miles. I never, NEVER in my life thought I would be running marathons, half or otherwise. But now that I have started, I am kind of addicted. I know this is something that is going to at least keep me semi in shape for the rest of my life, which is good, given my tendency to shove all the food and beer I can find into my mouth.

And I want to share this feeling of awesomeness I have. I love getting new friends involved in running halves with me. So if anyone is interested, please get in touch with me. Friends in Boise, friends in Germany: it is a great opportunity to get in shape and feel a sense of accomplishment. Hells yes.