How many of you found yourself sucked into the world of marathon training because someone said something like "if you can do XX, you can be a marathoner?"  Yep -- that's definitely how I got sucked into this vortex called marathon training.  I have to admit that I cannot blame anyone for engulfing into ultra marathons.  While training for my first NYC Marathon in 2015 - second marathon to the Rock n Roll DC - I started going taper crazy and signed up for the New York Road Runners' 60K that took place two weeks later.  In hindsight, I realized I must've lost my fucking mind and purged all of my happy pill after mile 29 inside of a port-a-potty somewhere around loop 6.  You have no idea how much you hate life, happy spectators enabling your neurotic addiction to medals and how broth tastes like unicorn tears after experiencing sodium deficiency until you do one of these things.  Long story short, I made it across that finish line that day.  I came in at 9 hours, 47 minutes and 22 seconds and vowed to never touch one of these things again in life.  Like all endurance runners, we're full of shit when we're not letting it off into the wilderness or some random café.  Most people know about marathons but what the hell is an ultra marathon -- and why would I even want to do it?

My mind and body has kept me captive for the last week.  Every time I try to escape this sedentary state, I'm back on my sofa or working on my computer for hours for assignments.  For the last week, I gave myself a full blown pep talk of what I'm going to do and how I'm going to do it.  One morning I forgot to set my alarm and it was already 9AM - which is ridiculously late for me - and another day, I woke up at 5AM with clothes laid out but greeted to brutal temperatures and an aching body.  It feels as if the world is giving me an assortment of excuses to not leave my house.  I have the Humana Rock n Roll New Orleans in a few weeks, just purchased my tickets and I don't feel prepared at all.  

I've done my share of relatively dumb shit -- I'm not sure if I'd count my race calendar as one.  To people who aren't ultra runners or enjoy the stark feeling of dancing with death by blisters may look at me rather strange.  After fixing up this website to make it look like an adult who cares about their life actually blurbs here, I realized that I signed up for a shit load of races this year -- some that's not even on the website calendar as of yet.  I'm looking at a minimum of ten marathons, a 50 miler, one TransRockies Run that total 120 miles with a 20K climb over the course of six days and yeah, I'm massaging the thought of signing up for a 100 miler.  Perhaps I did fall short on a special sort of stupid but I love it.  It doesn't stop me from asking myself what the fuck did I just sign up for each and every time.

When I officially started training for my first race, the Michelob 13.1 series in Queens, I remember not knowing what the hell I was doing.  My chest burned after three minutes of running and the only thing that kept me going was the idea of losing out on the race entry fee.  Feel free to judge my cheap ways because I know that I'm not alone in this sentiment.  One unusually warm winter morning, I went to Boys and Girls track feeling defeated and reducing my run down to a speed walk.  This long limbed, Shaun T looking extra galloped in front of me.  Her skin looked like rich dark chocolate and in my mind, her sweat probably tasted like a box of Girl Scout Cookies --and no I wasn't checking her out (that much).  I remember her because she did two and a half loops to my one loop.  She smiled at me on her fourth time around and even said good morning as I walked off the track pissed. 

'Fuck her for being able to sing while running that quickly.'  I actually said this out loud when I stopped the timer on my Runkeeper app.  I didn't hate her but she represented what I didn't have at the time:  Endurance, speed and a personal peace with running.  I was the Salt Bae of hater's anonymous.  In hindsight, I know that she wasn't my real problem.

Unlike most of my friend list on Instagram, my husband had to wake me up two minutes before the start of the New Year.  It's my lovely 30s kicking my ass and reminding me that I could give two bits of a damn about staying awake long enough to watch the ball drop.  Our family friend Joanna, my son EJ, husband and I had a celebratory drink - and the kid had sparkling cider - before I was ready to call it a night.  An exhausted Eric grew irritated about my line of questioning about what time we would go for our training run; he finally agreed that he'd wake up at whatever ungodly hour I was ready to go.  Whenever a spouse says something like this to you, it's a polite way of them telling you to please shut the hell up and leave them alone.  In my heart, I wanted to be a jerk and wake him for o'dark thirty; instead my body knew better and waited until after 8AM.