DF: RMU, Days 7-12 (AA)

Um, hi there.

So, yeah, I got lazy and stopped making a whole blog post per day. But nothing interesting happened. I walked and walk/jogged a lot:

Er, that's sideways. Oh well.

Except of course the last day I ran, and I tried to start at exactly noon and run exactly one 12-minute mile, but my stupid watch lost the satellites and I ended up starting at 12:02:

Then of course there's the snow.

It snowed about a foot on Saturday night into Sunday. (Yes, that's my back yard.) So I would have tried to do a 10-minute mile at 12:02 to end at 12:12 on 12/12/12, but, uh, no. I probably would have fallen on my face.

Anyway, also you should still go tell RWB that eating a dozen devilled eggs for fun is still not normal, because really. It isn't.

And now what are we supposed to do on the 12ths of months? I'm starting to go through withdrawal already.

Happy holidays, everyone! I'm sure we'll post random stuff when we're bored over here, but it's been a heckuva year!

FINALETHON! (RWB)

Happy Finalethon day, everyone! I am nowhere near as awesome as the Angle and her 78-mile epic feat, but I did get in 12 today:

I did the Diabolical Dozen challenge again. The Angle thinks I'm insane, although as I'm not the one who did 78 miles, I think we may have a bit of a pot-kettle situation there. Anyway, I really like eggs. This was probably actually my favorite challenge back in Q1 so I was perfectly happy to repeat it.

Seriously, only eating one at a time is the hard part for me.

Clearly I needed something to wash the eggs down with, though - RUI Single-Fister, please!

It's back. Still tastes like cough syrup.

I just managed to get myself out the door in time for the sunrise at 6:42am:

The second one's actually from 45 min later
(yep, still suck at taking pictures), but it looked neat.

I threw in a Sisyphus since I hadn't done that yet and the libraries and other public restrooms on my normal route don't open until about 9, and I prefer to have those nearby on my long runs in case of "issues". Plus it meant I could just set the container of eggs down on the back of my car and grab one every fourth lap.

Aaaaaaand I guess that's it! If we do indeed make it past next Friday, what are we all going to do with ourselves on the 12ths??

DF: RMU, Day 6 (AA)

Seven miles done, in the cold.

I guess it wasn't that cold today; it was over 40 degrees F when I left, but my face doesn't see it that way. I broke down and bought the 'expensive' face cream ($12.99 Neutrogena Naturals stuff) because I know it works, and after washing my face with my normal face stuff (Dr. Bronner's) and having it sting like I was sunburned, I feel pretty good about that decision.

Anyway, enough of that. DID EVERYONE SEE THE NEW STAR TREK TRAILER? The Japanese version has fourteen extra seconds. Find it here: Star Trek into Darkness.

Fifty-seven miles down, twenty-one left. So I've done more than a fifty-miler in the last few days, and I have less than a marathon left. Yay!

DF: RMU, Day 5 (AA)

Well, hi there. Eight miles today, and all is well!

I just wolfed down a burrito (homemade, not Chipotle) so I'm doing okay on refueling. I do kind of want cookies, but I can work on that later.

So let's talk about something a little less, um, highbrow: When you're running, do you wipe your nose all over your sleeves and gloves? Because, uh, yeah. It's gross, but you gotta wipe your nose somewhere.

50 miles down (!), 38 to go. Woo!

DF: RMU, Day 4 (AA)

9 miles! In the cold. We're starting to get to manageable distances.

So today let's talk about food.

In addition to what kind of shoes you wear, I also do not give a flying flunderton what you eat. Except: make sure there's enough of it.

This Reverse Mayan Ultra Deathmarch thingy is a lot of miles in not a lot of days, and for me (and a good deal of the rest of you) it's also in the cold. The first couple days, I was super-exhausted all the time and I think at least part of it is due to expending too many calories and not replacing them.

I've since fixed that, or at least tried to (there were lots of burritos involved), and I can stay awake past 8pm now, but yeah. The Reverse Mayan Ultra is kind of a bad time to, uh, count calories, unless it's to make sure you're not shorting yourself much. Undereating will also affect your ability to recharge/heal, so, yeah. Don't do it.

Watch what you're eating later. Eat lots of food, especially protein, now.

And if you'll excuse me, I must drink my eggnog-spiked Kahlua.

DF: RMU, Day 3 (AA)

10 ugly miles, but a titch faster than yesterday, I think:

But really, you're here to see the greyhounds.

As it turns out, greyhounds are pretty difficult to photograph, but hey, here's the best I could do:

They're both female dogs; the brindle I think was named Morgan and the white spotted one was named Lanta. I don't know if they're perma-homed by the people they were there with or not, but they're cute. Anyway. There are three greyhound rescue societies in the Twin Cities area, and there's probably one near you so you should adopt a greyhound.

33 miles down, 45 to go!

DF: RMU, Day 2 (AA)

Yeah, blah blah, I ran/walked (trotted?) 11 miles today in a ludicrously-long amount of time:

Note that it's actually about 10 minutes less than that, due to the fact that I spent about 10 minutes faffing around in a convenience store in there. (I had a coupon for a free coffee, and muffins were only $0.79, so I got a red velvet cake muffin. It was fantastic, thanks.)

Anyway, let's talk about shoes, and to start: I do not give a flying flunderton what kind of shoes you wear. You may have noticed that RWB and I both tend toward minimalist-ish shoes, her extremely so, me less, but that's for our own reasons which may not be yours. But what I'm about to say is important to everyone, or at least should be.

Throw out your damn shoes when they're dead.

Why? Because otherwise you might find yourself breaking in a new pair of shoes, of a new style/type, in the middle of a 78-miles-in-12-days deathmarch.

Unfortunately, I only noticed that my shoes were dead--for me that means starting to cause knee pain (the kind that almost immediately goes away)--um, like, Thursday, but I ignored it. So I'd be breaking in new shoes anyway around this time, but, uh, I would have been able to break in the shoes a mile at a time, if I'd worn them yesterday, rather than having to do 3.67 mi and then 7.33 miles all together.

So, yeah, the entire rear side of my body from my waist down to my heels hurts, thanks to going from Saucony ProGrid Kinvara 2s (4mm drop; moderate squish) to Merrell Bare Access Arc 1s (0mm drop; light squish). My left knee is also a tad tweaky: i.e., when my form starts to disintegrate at the end, if I'm not careful, it'll complain at me, but nothing is actually wrong and I just need to break up my runs a little bit for the next couple days. I'm blaming that on running about 2 days too long in the shoes with the dead midsoles, since I changed absolutely nothing else and this did happen last time, too.

But please, if you wear shoes with midsoles, don't wear them to the point that they screw up your form and make you hurt yourself. I missed going there just barely, and I'm glad I didn't.

23 miles down, 55 to go. Tomorrow: Greyhounds!

December Finalethon: Reverse Mayan Ultra, Day 1 (12 mi) (AA)

Well, hi there.

You'll notice it isn't actually the 12th. That's because this month, as a special bonus, Our Fair 12athon Leader is allowing us--if we're dedicated enough--to attempt the Mayan Ultra again. The thing is, though, we have to do it in reverse. Also, it's a 50-point bonus, whether you do the Varsity (12-10-9-etc.) or JV (6-5.5-5-etc.) distance. So, clearly, why do the Varsity distance?

THE CHALLENGE, DUH. Or general weirdness.

So anyway, yeah, today I'm running 12 miles, but in order to kill myself a little more slowly, I'm doing the Slacker's 12-Hour Challenge: 1 mile an hour for 12 hours. As I type this I've already done two. I'm also doing the RUI Double-Fister with coffee spiked with Kahlua (mint juleps were getting tedious and I am so not 'wasting' my good GLBC Christmas Ale on this) and the Dirty Dozen, so I'm actually quite uncomfortable at the moment.

Well, okay, I did remove the jacket and a couple of hats so I could survive indoors but I'm still wearing three pairs of pants. I think if you would have found me in March, or whenever the last time I did the Dirty Dozen, and said I'd be doing it again in December, I would have laughed. But the high today is 46 and it was already above freezing when I did the first mile at about 7:35, so.

Anyway, it's like 10 hours later and I'm done now, so let's get to the important part: ridiculous pictures of me.

Here's sort of how I looked when I started:

And here's my coffee (still in the French press) and the Kahlua (still in the bottle, but shortly after that I poured it into a couple of travel mugs):

Believe you me, I consumed all of it.

Here, if I've managed to do it properly, is a series of pictures of my Garmin watch:

I'm going to post this picture an extra time because I would like to highlight my photo-bombing cat:

And here is a series of pictures of me, standing in front of the microwave mostly, for timestamps, holding various articles of clothing that I promise I was wearing before I got pictures:

Yeah, I'm well aware that it's too small to see the timestamps, but they're there. *sigh*

Here's what I removed, in convenient list format:

• A mitten
• The other mitten
• A balaclava
• A red shirt
• An Active Band headband, 12athon swag
• A pair of gray capris
• A knee sock (bought for a race, so it's running wear)
• The other knee sock
• A glove
• The other glove
• Another pair of gray capris
• ...and then everything else

So: Slacker's 12-Hour (24) + RUI Double-Fister (12) + Dirty Dozen (8), but I can't really figure out what the total points are until the 12th because who knows if I'm going to finish this or not.

And holy crap am I tired now. Also, I think I killed my shoes, and I saw greyhounds in between miles 5 and 6, but I've got eleven more days of blogging, so I'll talk about those things in the next couple days.

12 down, 66 to go!