3 down, 7 to go…

I am not counting days, nor hours, nor even minutes… I am counting toenails.

In November, after running a half-marathon, I sacrificed two perfectly good toenails. Thankfully, by last week, I could tell my toes would be fine in time for flip-flop season.

That was last week… pre-Friday, last week… or as I’ll call it – 10 Mile Friday. Let me go back a bit….

Katie, Ellie and I like to set goals. It keeps us runnin’… or swimmin’… or bikin’. Our summer markers are a half-marathon in June and an all-women’s sprint triathlon, the Danskin, in August. Since the half-marathon is only a few weeks away, we must get in our long runs each week. Must. Do. It. We increase the length by 1 mile each week. This week we needed to do 10 – straight. We usually do these on Saturday mornings.

Welp, we signed up to do a 5 mile race for this particular Saturday morning (Yay for “Little Norway” and the highly anticipated Viking Fest). I suggested running 5 before the race and doing the last 5 as part of the race…. but that seemed silly. So, we decided to get to 10 miler in on Friday night, and enjoy a short 5 mile run Saturday mornin’. Oh my heck. Can you hear my 3 toes cursing and screaming and gnashing their callouses?

Anywho. Katie and I finished the race in 46:30. We finished our first mile in 8:40, but leveled out to around a 9:20/mile average. That’s cool. Ellie finished a few minutes earlier… she’s fast like that.
So, in addition to 3 toenails that will soon depart their appointed assignment (my toes)… I had a stomach ache all of Friday night and all Saturday… and I think running makes me jaundiced. My face turns yellow… have I ever mentioned I often smell ammonia after a really good run?…

Why do I do this to myself?

(About the picture – this was taken in December 2006, about a month after the Seattle Marathon, and a day or two after a few hours of dancing to The Retros in bad shoes. I know, it’s gross… but it helps make the point, doesn’t it?)