Middle School Misery

A quick note on our fundraising lacrosse clinic: middle school girls are either horribly miserable or incredibly wonderful. There is no in between, and they sure don’t care. While the wonderful ones are a million times better to work with, the misery ones are much better to tell stories about.

Exhibit A: Mom drops off a tired, cranky, disheveled looking girl 15 minutes before registration starts. She asks if it’s okay; I look at my watch, consider, and sigh, “I guess so. I’m here.” What that really meant was, “What are you doing on Saturday, at 8:30am, that is so important you have to strand your daughter, early, who is already miserable, with someone who can’t even pay attention to her because she has to set up the entire clinic in ten minutes by herself because her partner got lost in Cambridge and is coming late?” And of course this girl hasn’t pre-registered, as the flyer and accompanying forms blatantly stated, and of course she has cash, which I hadn’t even thought about (because people were supposed to send in checks ahead of time) and therefore don’t have change for. At least the mom was in such a rush, and so rude, that she threw the money down and said “Oh, keep the change” and she slammed the door on her way out. Bonus $15 for me. Not-so-bonus dark-looking 7th grader brooding, slumped over in a chair, and staring at my every move for ten minutes until the next (early) girl comes in.

Exhibit B: This girl doesn’t even wake up until 11:55, when we clean up and stretch at the end of the session. I don’t think she said one word the entire morning, and I had to read her name off her name-tag every time she said it because she mumbled so much under her breath and looked the other way, bored, that I couldn’t even understand, or try to lip-read (which I am not even skilled at) the first letter or any sounds in it. Her bangs are in her eyes, which isn’t exactly conducive to seeing the lacrosse ball coming at her, and is definitely a sign of a totally apathetic, and thusly useless, athlete, but she doesn’t care one bit. When we play games, she walks, or asks to sit out, or just stands still and watches the ball bounce right next to her instead of at least pretending to care for her team’s sake. Thanks for your money, sweetheart; I would kick you outta here if I had the guts.

So anyway, it was a successful and fun clinic and we raised over $800. Don’t get me wrong, I’m psyched about the results and had a good day of lacrosse. Also, most of the girls were perfectly kind and hard-working—totally awesome, really—and learned something from playing lacrosse all morning. But I certainly was reminded of how interesting it can be to work with middle school girls. Thank goodness I was a lanky, dorky, bookish, unfashionable, totally clueless pre-teen because I wouldn’t want to know I was like some of the girls we saw yesterday. Yikes! I did have a sort of mid-life crisis about not being popular in 6th grade, but at least I wasn’t one of the girls my teachers and coaches had to tell stories about in the mysterious teachers' lounge, where they probably stood around drinking martinis and doing evil things to voodoo dolls of their students. At least that's what I do in the teachers' lounge.

Half Way there

Today, my charity fundraising team and I ran the last half of the Boston Marathon. We popped on the route right at the beautiful (and scarily male-free) Wellesley College campus, stuck to it right ‘til the end, and even went another mile and a half or so (to find the water/warmth/coordinator/ride back to our vehicles). Wouldn’t you just expect me to say it was swell? Well, it was. It was fine; it was great; it wasn’t bad at all. Thinking of running 15 miles (let’s face it: rounding up from 14.8 makes it sound even better) makes me cringe a little, and makes me think about how many times I will probably have to make a number two but not be able to find a bathroom, but it went smoothly and passed quickly and it was actually quite nice to know what to expect come race day. It was cold, about 20-25 degrees or so, but it was clear and sunny and Boston was quiet and it was generally just grand. And we only stopped for one pee break and I only had to poo a little bit.

My college field hockey and lacrosse buddy, BK, is, totally coincidentally, on the same charity team as I am. Having a friend in the same boat makes the training (not to mention the fundraiser we are running together tomorrow) SO much better. I’m not super-social, as I may have said already, so the thought of having to meet new people and talk to them totally skeeves me out. My five-year college graduation reunion is coming up and I basically throw up in my mouth every time I think about how scary it is going to be; I keep in touch with approximately ten people from college: one didn’t become my friend until we ended up working together a year after graduating, and the other nine were on the ski team with me and are not in the same class. Basically, I’m on my own. That side-note was to explain why it makes sense that I am super-psyched to have a friend to do these training activities with.

Oh man, I'm even more happy to have BK there because there is an extremely annoying girl on our training ventures. She isn’t on the same team as I am, but our teams overlap in joint adventures of running insane distances only a crazy anorexic would think of and doing other workouts only suited for college athletes and suburban-stay-at-home-moms who think they have to stay “in-shape” to keep the bacon coming home. She is younger than I am, not by much, but enough for me to think—know—I am so much better and so much smarter and am so much more mature than she. She enjoys talking about her college days, in Boston, when she would watch, in a drunken stupor, the marathon runners and raucously enjoy her day (Patriots' Day--Massachusetts only) off school, watching her friends vomit on the race course and dump their beers on the racers. Sweet. She means well, she is raising money for charity after all, but holy moly can she talk your ear off about the stupidest stuff you have ever heard. Probably she’s just nervous about being around strangers; I hear her on that one, but man am I glad my mouth shuts instead of opens when I freak out about my surroundings. Luckily, I had my iPod (hot pink, obviously) and my friend for the run today.

My legs are definitely tired, but I’m not sore or injured, after the long run this morning. Interestingly enough, we ran at a much faster pace than I am used to. The ten-minute mile, my natural go-to no matter what, was right out the window. I knew we were running fast, but I wasn’t out of breath and I could still hold a conversation so I didn’t say anything. Plus, it was nice to finish and change into dry, warm clothes and sit in a heated car drinking purple Gatorade served to me from a squat orange tub in the back of the “team’s” Yukon sooner. I didn’t want to look like a wimp but a couple times I definitely wondered if this was a normal speed for my friend. I’m sure it was, actually. She’s a steady notch faster than me in the jogging/long run department. Don’t worry though: I killed all my college teammates in the area of sprinting, which field sports are anyway, so I don’t feel inferior. I hope I remember to stretch later.

Among Other Activities...

If you didn’t know and couldn’t guess, I do have a job. I already mentioned I live in an Animal House-esque dorm; well, they don’t drink (that I have busted them for) and they haven’t (yet) put a horse in anyone’s office (and then killed it), but it’s full of 25 boys so you get the picture. To get an idea of the kind of school I work at, know that I was told, sternly, not to call it a “dorm” because: “we live in houses, not dorms.” Now, I don’t have anything against trying to give teenagers who live away from home a feeling of family and comfort, but jeez, I seriously get snapped at every time I slip and call it what it is: a dorm. Plus, I went to high school where they weren’t afraid to call them dorms, every college in America calls them dorms, and I worked at a different high school where I lived in and, again, called them dorms, so honestly, that ain’t a habit that’s about to be broken. The trusty online lexicon Merriam Webster, which we know to be fact, says a dormitory is: “a residence hall providing rooms for individuals or for groups usually without private baths”. Truth be told; I live/work in a dorm. Just don’t tell my boss I said that.

Living in said “house”, I get paid to “take care” of high school boys every other weekend and every other Tuesday, among random re-assignments. The free apartment, free [dining hall] food (not half bad, really) if I need it, and free utilities would have been enough, really, but they offered to give a “Campus Resident” stipend, as if I should expect that (my last place of employment screwed me over I guess), and I wasn’t about to not take the money. So that job really entails leaving my apartment door (the one that is directly connected to the hallway, yikes) open and making sure people show up a few times, alive, on my watch; half of them leave on weekends anyway so it’s even less of a duty. A miniscule effort goes into leaving notes on my personal whiteboard when I go somewhere, and I guess it counts as work to walk around and make sure their rooms aren’t totally embarrassingly dirty and unsanitary (only when I am “on duty”, of course), but really this part of the job is worth it because I can turn up the heat (or the AC) as high as I want, leave the faucets running, never turn off any utilities, and take the longest showers I want. I’m not inclined to, and in fact have extreme environmental guilt when I, do all of the above things but the point is I could if I wanted to—for free. I’m not saying we should waste resources and take advantage of free stuff but really, the idea of it is magical.

Another part of my job, and the reason I ended up at this school anyway, is coaching. Field hockey in the fall, skiing in the winter, and lacrosse in the spring. Just like the good old days of college. Only now I am in charge and actually have to show up with a game plan; the bonus is I can party on Friday nights (haha, good one) and the probability of pulling my groin is quite slim. PS. People don’t give coaches enough credit; I may be a bit obsessive, but I could spend hours on practice and game plans, line-ups, and preparation—for high school. Did I mention I’m competitive?

This coaching aspect, which I absolutely adore, is the whole point of my rant today. One would think during ski season we spend the practices skiing, but no. Mondays we have off (fine with me, and good for the athletes), Wednesdays are random bits such as watching video, running, strength circuits, or possibly time for ski tuning or…nothing at all, Fridays are race days, and the other two days we actually do train on-snow, as they call it. Compared to my last ski coaching job, in which I had to stand on the freezing, windy hillside six mornings a week for 3-7 hours and get up at 5am on weekends, it’s nothing. So I’m not complaining about the amount or type of skiing, what I’m getting at is the inconsistency and my issues with remembering how the days change all the time and my problems with things not being exactly as they are supposed to be. We haven’t exactly had a regular plan going, so basically I check my e-mail every afternoon hoping I haven’t missed the start of practice already. It’s nice to be the assistant though—it can never be my fault, whatever “it” is.

Today, in marathon-training land, was a 5 mile run. There aren’t really good loops around here that equal 5 miles, and I am absolutely against doubling-back on my tracks (too boring, not to mention for wusses), so I made up a less-than-fiver-miler than suited me. No problem, just shaved a half mile or so off to make it fit into the 45 minutes I had between work (admissions office, long story) and ski practice. Really, I don’t mind shortening a run. Little did I know, ski practice was running. I show up at home, stinking in my cold, sweaty layers, thinking I can get nice and warm and cozy, make some tea, and find the ski team for some non-physical thing or other. No. I must immediately go to the sacred meeting area, do a head count, and pretend to be psyched to run. Awesome. In addition, for added fun, there are circuits at the end. After the run. The second run of my day. Ski practice circuits, for you newbies out there, are painful and repeated exercises such as squats, lunges, push-ups, jumping, ab-work (til you almost die) and other fun activities. Did I mention they are painful and repeated (over and over…and over again)? At the end of the day I didn’t feel too badly cutting my marathon training a half mile short.

Then, I slept.

Shortcuts

In what mathematically messed up world does 10 equal 5.3? I will tell you: my world. My running world, to be exact. And here's what happened to make me do such terrible math.

My boyfriend (BF), who may or may not be running this marathon too and therefore may or may not be sometimes training with me and sometimes totally sabotaging my training, invited some buddies from Maine up to my parents' house for the long Martin Luther King weekend. I also invited some friends up from Boston; what good is an empty house in the mountains if not to entertain pals who enjoy said mountains? None I tell you. So, the active and excited young married Maine couple, freshly adorned with new nordic skiing equipment, seriously looking so LLBean in their Subaru and sleek black snow pants, timed their arrival to coincide exactly with ours so as to lengthen the amount of time they could spend skiing. We drove in to find them wrestling in the snow bank; isn't that sweet? The sometimes-active-but-much-more-city-slicker-esque unmarried-and-living-in-sin (go team!) Boston couple didn't exactly say when they would be arriving (or leaving home) and also took several severely windy back roads and ended up a couple hours later in arriving, which really isn’t a big deal to “city folk” anyway. Guess who had to wait to greet them. Yep, me.

While I could have told them that the door is never locked and there was a roaring fire in the woodstove and we get full cable television (that maybe isn't exactly paid for) and had just stocked the fridge and don't give a crap if they made themselves at home and had also acquired several kinds of alcohol for the weekend, I just said I would wait for them while the aforementioned BF ran off to nordic ski on the amazingly fun and exciting, not to mention freshly snowed upon and groomed, trails in town. Needless to say at 4pm, when they finally arrived, I didn't have the guts to ditch them and go running. PS. It still gets dark before 5 and pps. running 10 miles will take me well over an hour and a half and ppps. it was now well below 20 degrees and windy. Excuses you say? Yeah, me too. And I don't care.

So, leery of not running the requisite mileage to keep myself on marathon target, I promised myself I would run on Sunday. (I didn't say I wasn't nervous at all about sometimes not following the training program; I have enough of my dad's leftover Catholic guilt in me to make up for some things I skip). For those of you not paying attention, Sunday is technically "cross-training" day. And for those of you who haven't figured it out yet, I'm a little bit Type A and have a need to stick to things I say I am going to stick to. So forgive me for being a little cranky about having to skip my run and mess up my whole week; if you know anything, it throws me way off when I have to compromise and do something not in my plan. And did I mention it was 15 degrees colder on Sunday than Saturday? Well it sure as hell was. And that made it 11 degrees at the starting line. But I'd be a total wuss if I skipped running at all this weekend, and I can’t handle wusses. So run I did.

And 5.3 is the number of miles I made it before the wind-induced tears, arctic air blowing in my mesh toe-boxes, and frozen earlobes convinced me enough was enough. The ice-whiskers growing longer off Bruschi’s chin with each breath were kind of cute, but they also told me a story about a little place called In Front of the Woodstove where you can sit in sweatpants and fuzzy socks and drink hot chocolate while reading trashy magazines and doing absolutely nothing. The latter activity is much preferable to running outside in wind-chill single-digits…and I am supposedly running 14 miles (twice what’s on my schedule!) next Saturday…and I had company after all.

And also, the Patriots were going for the Superbowl at 3, so I kinda had to be back in time to "prepare" for that. And by prepare I mean shower, put on my Brady #12 jersey, start the chili, and open a beer, which doesn't take that long but could if I really dragged it out.
So I'm a slacker.
The end.

Feed Me

This afternoon, my running schedule, which dictates many of my afternoons from now until April 21st (and may or may not be henceforth referred to as “the Oracle), told me to run five miles. Therefore, five miles I ran. Well, possibly five. I’ll have to check on mapmyrun.com (be careful, it is a highly addictive website). I thought my route, which I have run before, would take me around fifty minutes, which means, on my pace, around five miles. It turns out things go a lot faster without a dog. Bruschi the Mutt goes to “school” on Wednesdays. This is, yes, doggy day care. My dad is probably not proud of this fact; in his mind, dogs are supposed to run around in the yard and bark at strangers, and they’re just dogs for Lord’s sake. They don’t need day care; they need tough love. Well, Bruschi the Mutt is not always the most happily social of dogs so he goes to school to practice. That’s what school is for (so there, Dad). And I might add Bruschi adores it and gets the best grades, naturally. And don't forget how good a tired dog is.

So, without a four legged running buddy, previously timed fifty minute runs become much shorter. Today, for instance, it took 38 minutes. I knew it was going faster than usual but I also knew there was no way I ran five miles in that amount of time. I had to invent a lame loop at the end to try to make up for it. If you must know, I do not enjoy doing things simply for the sake of doing them, so having to add on to a perfectly good loop just because it wasn’t long enough sort of pissed me off. Even the new run came to about 44 minutes. I left it at that and pat myself on the back for possibly being faster than usual. I bet when I check the mileage I will feel cheated but, alas, I don’t care. And I don’t care because I was frickin’ starving starting about half way through said run.

Food is so weird. You have to eat it for energy and power, but your body doesn’t particularly like you to eat it right before you need energy and power. If you don’t time your run exactly so you have digested your last meal enough but are not even close to needing your next meal yet then you will either become hungry or uncomfortable on your run. Neither of these are things I like to be. But I sort of forgot to mow down a snack before I left for a ski team meeting and then I had to leave right away to get outside before the sun set…and by the time mile three came around I was salivating over the perfectly ripe (just a little brown-ish for me) banana I knew was waiting for me in the fruit basket on the counter and thinking about how much peanut butter would be too much to put on it.

The answer, just like the answer to “how much wine is too much on a Friday after a long and terrible day at work/fight with your SO (significant other)/blind date/really any other situation works here too?” is: there can never be too much.

Week One (my week one): Complete

So, today was my first “long” run. “Long” means the longest one of the week; pretty soon they will all be “long” in my book. Some week, hopefully in the distant future, I have to run 8 miles Tuesday, 10 miles Wednesday, and 8 miles again on Thursday. That’s all before the “long” run on Saturday: 20 miles. The last thing you to need to think of me is that I run 45 miles in a week and don’t think that’s a lot. PS. This is the novice training plan. I’m no complainer, remember, but I will say the miles add up pretty quickly…especially if I start having to run on the treadmill, which, with a snowstorm every week this winter, is very soon going to happen.

Nothing makes me want to harm someone more than running on a treadmill. Not even a good treadmill, with a squishy track, built in tv with free favorite movies, and all sorts of distractions can fool me into thinking running indoors is a good idea. I instantly start sweating that itchy-indoor, drippy/sticky sweat, and the ceiling feels too low, and I get bored instantly. Plus, the only thing to watch is often some high school dudes checking themselves out in the mirror after lifting too much weight with totally wrong form and pretending they didn’t just hurt themselves. I have to face the facts though, training for a spring marathon is going to, at some point or another, involve a treadmill. Sigh.

The “long” run today was 9 miles. Not too long, but definitely not a “hey, wanna go for a jog today because its nice out and I like outdoor activities?” kind of run. Being the first long run of my training (since I haven’t exactly been paying attention to the first three weeks of the program), I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew I could do it, but I knew it would feel sort of tedious. Too bad, because it’s only like, what, a third of the actual marathon? Cripes. When you put it that way, 9 miles is nothing.

So, at my standard-no-matter-how-long-or-how-hard-it-seems-to-be pace of 10 minute miles, it was supposed to (and did) take 90 minutes to complete this run. How many things can you think of that take 90 minutes that you would rather do more than run? You could watch Shrek (any of them) in that amount of time, and that is never a bad use of 90 minutes. I absolutely love the scene in Shrek the Third when Gingy has his life flashback and we learn so much about him. Hey, he even runs on a treadmill in that scene, poor little guy. Oh, it’s also hilarious when he poops a gumdrop out of sheer terror. Poop is just so funny.

Here’s who poops on runs: Bruschi the mutt. If we start the day with a run, he poops in about five minutes. Maybe less. Then, on long runs, such as the aforementioned 9 miler, he poops more than once. I don’t know how it all fits in there but he’s a smart man to get it out. Here’s who needs to poop on runs, especially long ones, but can’t because it’s inappropriate: me. Not to get TMI (too-much-information) on you, but this is definitely a topic necessary to discuss in the running world. If you can’t get your morning poo out before your run, you can kiss a comfortable last few miles goodbye. I should do research on why this happens; maybe I can figure out a way around it. I’ll report back next time. Luckily I seem to time my training (and whatever other factors go into this) around the tragic event of having to do one’s business mid-run. For 26.2 miles, however, I don’t think anyone can promise anything.

On another note, the first “long” run of my training process went quite well.

Running Companion

My dog is a mutt. He’s awesome. He looks like small-ish black lab with a sweet white blaze on his chest. He acts absolutely nothing like a lab, which is fortunate for me because I enjoy peace and quiet and don’t particularly enjoy (and touching slobber on) tennis balls for hours on end. He has funny ears that go straight out in triangles when he is curious about something, and he has an amazing Elizabethan collar of “froof”, which is a technical term for “his lower face and neck look like a raccoon’s.” His tail goes straight up and curls over toward his back, ala husky, especially when he is strutting his stuff, trying to look [extra] handsome or strong. He loves any toy his girlfriend (a golden) in Vermont sends him, and he definitely likes treats more than his regular food. One thing he truly loves is running. When you picture me training, as I know you do on a regular basis, you can picture Bruschi (yes, as in New England Patriots Tight End Tedy Bruschi, the coolest guy ever) the mutt sniffing and prancing alongside me.

For two years now, Bruschi has been my main running companion. The vet said to wait until he was a year old…but I only made it about 9 months. He’s such an adventurer; how can you look your adventure-loving dog in the eye, tie up your shoes, and leave him? Not possible. Plus, you can’t go wrong with a dog running partner, really. If anyone will push you to finish that route, it’s your run-loving dog. Your knee hurts? Too bad, he hasn’t pooped yet. Thirsty? Try drinking with your tongue only, insensitive jerk. Every excuse you can come up for not running with pales in comparison to shutting up and running with your dog.

I find him especially great for when I need distractions. We can make any run slower and more interesting just by sniffing footprints, yellow spots, turd piles, and roadkill carcasses (among other appealing things). We can also make any run go by faster simply by racing each other until we absolutely have to stop and walk.

Bruschi smiles, seriously, the entire time. You can’t look at his face and not feel good about running with him. When I’m super lazy and can’t even imagine going for a run, I pump myself up on how great Bruschi will feel (and how sleepy and quiet he’ll be later). I’m obviously a pushover and screwed when I have kids.

Cross Training

I have officially started following "the plan". Just so you know.

So, if you aren’t a professional athlete, or someone who has followed some sort of training plan, you, like me, may have no idea what “cross training” is. I don’t think regular Joes cross-train. Regular Joes just do the same exercise all the time because we know what the hell we’re doing so it’s easy. However, this so-called cross-training is on my schedule of things to do while training for this marathon, and thusly it must be done. And thusly I must find out what it is.

I suppose I could make up a meaning from the two words “cross” and “training” and get a definition somewhere along the right idea. Remember the dad in My Big Fat Greek Wedding? He is so annoying, but cute, when he constantly relates words back to their Greek meanings. The best example is at the wedding (they finally get to the wedding!) when he compares the groom’s last name Miller, which comes from the Greek word for apple, and his daughter’s last name Portokalos, which comes from the Greek word for orange, and explains that in the end we are all just fruit anyway. (To get a good effect, say the dad lines in his voice and picture him in your mind). I guess that’s just a way of saying “It’s okay for you vegetarian heathen to marry my daughter even though you aren’t exactly like me and have long, skanky hair because at least your last name can sort of stem from a Greek word.” Cute movie; watch it.

If we look at merriamwebster.com, which I am known to do on occasions of needing to win an argument and just plain nerdy curiosity, we cannot find cross-training. We can, however, find “cross-dressing", and if you are wondering, the definition for that is: the wearing of clothes designed for the opposite sex. It is dated 1911, so I guess Merriam Webster (is it one person? Two people? More?) did a little research on that one. Well now for real, the word cross can be a verb, noun, adjective, adverb, or preposition. Not sure which one to choose, so skip that, too hard, on to the word training: the act, process, or method of one that trains. Oh boy, how helpful. I’m too lazy to look at the MW definition for train so here’s my take on cross-training: you can’t run every goddam day of the week because it’s not good for you so do something else active on Sundays. In my mind, something else active could mean many, many things. Some vigorous cookie baking has been known to get a good sweat on my brow. Walking the dog in too many layers gets a good flush face. Sunday/cross-training day is very open for interpretation.

So, today I chose the “elliptical”. I put it in quotes because in my head I sort of said the word in a mystical and sneaky voice like “oooh, the alleged and elusive elliptical machine.” I’m not sure why I did that, because it is a very standard aerobic machine, chosen, I would say, most often by college girls and moms who want to work out, just not that hard. While ellipting, one can read a book or magazine, watch the tele, chat with extreme hand motions, and on occasion of wanting to be tres rude and annoying, talk on the phone. Now I’m no pro athlete or die-hard exerciser here, but talking on the phone while working out kind of defeats the purpose, no? If you are breathing evenly enough to have a conversation on the phone you aren’t getting the kind of exercise you probably should be. Again, I guess I did just argue that baking can count as a workout, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I’m sure you already learned this.

I don’t have much to say about the elliptical other than it was my choice of cross-training today. It is rather boring, and I do so not enjoy indoor activities (extra sweaty and no scenery), but I have a good book and had to do something so…here we are.

The Plan

Today I printed out my training schedule. Well, that’s a lie. I found one someone sent me, looked at it, and put it on top of a pile of crap so I have to see it. It’s the same exact plan I followed for my last(and first) marathon, so it’s up for some improvisation. That also means I didn’t pay too much attention to it. Someone normal would probably have wondered how far behind they are; at this point (I think) I can accomplish all runs on the schedule and therefore do not feel one bit bad about not-quite-yet-almost-tomorrow-soon starting. It’ll be okay. That’s what I keep telling myself.

It doesn’t help that over vacation I’ve had at least twenty people ask me how training is going. I haven’t lied; I haven’t said “Oh great”; I haven’t really explained much. I sort of shrug and say I don’t have to start until next week…I guess that’s a lie, sort of, but it totally depends on what sort of plan you are following. But that’s too much to explain too, so I stick with the idea that when I start is exactly when I should start and I know what I’m doing. I wouldn’t really call someone who has run one marathon before an expert on the training and timing of marathons, but I pretend to be one and since I’ve run one before and I am the best at everything, honestly, I know what I’m doing.

Whatever.

New Year's "Fun"

Happy New Year! Still haven’t officially started training here—woopsy. I guess I’m not nervous, considering I usually run 3-4 miles about five times a week without thinking its that big of a deal. When the training schedule starts to have bigger mileage numbers on it then I’ll start taking it seriously. Do I sound like a serial procrastinator or what? I’m not, honestly.

If I was nervous about the training I would probably not have stayed up until 3am last night (doing absolutely nothing but trying to get out of the party we attended—no offense to the hosts, of course). Why do we have to stay up until midnight on New Year’s Eve anyway? Can’t they broadcast midnight from somewhere else in the world so we can just get it over with and go to bed already? We could be here, in Boston, watching London’s ball drop (do they have the stupid ball drop or is that just us?), finishing our dinner, walking the dog, and tucking ourselves into bed by 10pm at the latest. That would be an ideal New Year’s night for me, sound asleep in my own cozy bed, starting my second REM cycle as everyone else in America counts down, drinks one too many glasses of crap sparkly wine, and then twiddles their thumbs as they wonder if they will look lame if they leave the party first.

Honestly, have you ever heard someone say they had a fabulous New Year’s Eve? Most people I talk to wonder the same question. So who’s having all the fun out there? Carson Daly with his million live viewers in Times Square? Not really, he can’t even get tanked, which, frankly is the reason everyone tries to make New Year’s Eve a big deal in the first place. Everyone gets January 1st off work, unless they have a really awful job or boss (or are really smart and know the parties will be lame so they volunteer to come in) and oftentimes it’s a free weekday so everybody sees it as a good excuse as any to get hammered. Plus, they know they have a full day to ice their puffy face and hydrate their red, veiny hungover eyes and lie on the couch watching garbage on tv and not feeling bad about it.

It’s always fun to see friends, which is what I did this New Year’s, so don’t get me wrong, I’m not as miserable a hermit as you might imagine. In the grand scope of training for a marathon though, New Year’s Eve doesn’t rise very high on my ladder of fun and important things to spend my time and energy on. Oh well. You know I’ll try again next year. Stupidly.