The day a "short run" was 14 miles.

I never thought that I would ever be saying, "oh yeah, tomorrow is a short run. We only have to run 14." What da? This reminds me of a time when Kelly Exner could barely get me to run 1 mile on a treadmill at Victory Fitness in Columbus. Oh, the times have changed!

Yesterday's long run didn't start out too well. Actually, the day as a whole didn't start out too well.

I had to rent a zip car to get to the run since I would be driving to Sharon, Mass directly following the run to celebrate Anne and Kai's new baby, Natalie. I went to pick up the car in the garage around 7:30a. I quickly realized the car I rented wasn't there. After 5 minutes of trying to figure out why not (my coffee hadn't kicked in yet), I called Zip car. They abruptly informed me that I was in the wrong garage. Strike 1 for the day.

After I finally find the correct garage and Prius plug in car, I head to Lexington. I'm over by Harvard driving on Mem. drive and I look in my review mirror, the guy in the car behind looked like he also had a full body reflective running outfit on. I thought, "hmm, maybe he's going to the Dana Farber run too?" Then he turned his flashing lights on and pulled me over. Apparently, I didn't signal when I was changing lanes. Well, if you've ever driven in Boston, you'd know that there are rarely even lane lines. In fact, even less likely is someone using a blinker. Strike 2. (By this point I realize that I'm going to miss the group run send off and quickly call my girl crush to wait for me. Of course she says, "like I would leave without you?" I heart her.

14 miles, 1 pack of Cliff shot bloks, 1 lime flavored Gu, and a quick pit stop at Starbucks later... we're feeling good. I head out to the car and proceed to find my phone so I can get the address for the baby shower. Strike 3. My phone was not on and would not turn on. I had no idea where the shower was (other than in Sharon) and no way of getting a hold of anyone. I did eventually get some juice from the Droid (which ended up turning right back off). I somehow ended up in Foxburo at Gillette Stadium (about 45 miles from Lexington) hobbling around looking for a Verizon to buy a phone charger. NO luck. I do however know MB's cell phone number! YES! Thank goodness she answered a random number (since I had to call from the Verizon FIOS, not wireless store) and she had the address of the shower.

All in all, the day ended up being great. A fun run with my teammates during which our conversations ranged from the best ant-chafing underwear to our favorite post run drinks/food. After a relaxing afternoon on the couch, a bunch of us headed to the North End for dinner and then out by the Garden for some dancing.

The quote of the night for me was from Brett. "Steph, at what mileage do you stop dancing non-stop in the evening after a long run in the morning?"

TBD.

Girl crush. (Sorry I cheated on you, Jean).

In order to keep my momentum going, I decided to head to the Thursday night Crossroads pub run this evening. Now, I've done this run before, back when we weren't getting a new snow storm every Wednesday. The first attempt went so/so. I met two other girls that ran fast. I don't run fast. That night I had to run fast because I had no clue where the route went and I was not going to get lost running hill repeats in Newton at 9pm on a Thursday night. No thank you. I emailed everyone on the Dana Farber team that I know (four people to be exact) to see if they were going to the Crossroads run tonight. No one was. The initial thoughts I had were, "I could just run tomorrow morning" or "I'm going to sack up and run this thing and find a new friend". I went with the latter and headed to Crossroads straight after work. I mean, I did just buy new running gloves and a new hat....

Of course I get there and the only people I recognized with "those girls". The girls who clearly don't do anything without each other. They even had their fundraiser together last night. "Those girls" did not want anything to do with me. Luckily, they did introduce me to "that girl" that was in the corner not talking to "those girls". Her name was Angela. To make a long story short (9 miles and a 45 minute T ride really gives you some time to get to know each other), we're basically twins. At one point she looked at me and said, "we've been talking about food for 5 miles, I knew I was going to like you!" Other than the fact that she is 4 years younger than me, we're the same person. Italian. Short. Loud. Funny (or at least try to be). Sarcastic. Love music. Know PJ Aspesi. The list goes on... I can't wait to see where this girl crush goes.

Thank goodness for Teammates.

Step 1: apply and get accepted to the Dana Farber Marathon challenge. CHECK.

Step 2: celebrate getting accepted. CHECK CHECK.

Step 3: recover from celebration and begin hydrating/training

Step 4: Train, Eat, Sleep, Eat, ask people for money. 

Step 5: Repeat Step 4 until April 18th. 

In addition to my "to do" list above, I've really enjoyed forming friendships with the DFMC team. Now more than ever, I clearly understand how important a running buddy is. Already, I've been given various forms of NSAID's, rides to and from group runs, advice on everything going on in my life, stretching techniques, beer, food, offers to get set up on blind dates - you name it, we've talked about it on a run.

Last weekend, a teammate and I decided to go off track a bit with our group run. We eventually made it back to the running center that we all met at, but it was quite an adventure (not that 15 miles of running really needs to be more of an adventure...) 

Liquid courage.

For a few months, I've had random people say, "your life is insane. you should blog" (or something similar to that). After that advice and the fact that I will most likely NEVER run a marathon again, I thought I would blog about it.

So, here we go!

Let's just say I've had better ideas than running the Boston marathon. One of the women I run with (let's call her, Jean) was seriously questioning my sanity when I decided to train for this. It was a somewhat easy decision to at least apply to train and run with the Dana Farber Marathon Challenge. I had no idea at the time how competitive the DF team is. Against my better judgement (and a few glasses of wine later) I decided to go ahead and apply. What could it hurt to apply? I knew this year I was going to raise money in memory of RJ, so why not do it for the DFMC? I'd have to time to decide if I could or wanted to accept the challenge (if they accepted me first). I knew I could raise the money (thanks to you!!) What I didn't know is if I could commit to training. In Boston. In the winter. While I was in grad school and working full time. Thank you, liquid courage!

After weeks and weeks of not hearing from Dana Farber, I decided to stalk them through email. This turned in to about one email a week until I finally got denied. Well, I actually was "waitlisted" but to me, that just meant I was denied. By this point, I was already amped up and running more than usual. So, I decided to stay true to my Italian roots and not take "no" for an answer. I emailed them again and asked what were the chances I would be accepted this year? What number was I on the waitlist? Is there anything I can do to increase my chances? All I can say is within the next 4 hours, I had basically re-written my budget and fundraising goals and eventually was accepted!

My liquid courage has changed from a glass of red wine to gallons of pink gatorade.