If I were a gambling woman, I would bet on B. Everyone in my town knew I was coming down here to do this. I work at a school where 600 children knew I was going to be doing a whole lotta running. I could NOT come back and tell them I was a quitter. "Listen to your body," the husband kept saying to me. He wasn't ready to become a widow. I had already done 22.4 miles of racing in the last 3 days, not to mention the countless miles in Disneyworld.
I lubed up my toes, completely forgetting the top of my feet (that's a story for later), lubed up other areas that I didn't want to chafe but I'll spare you the details, drank some vitamin C powder stuff, packed my breakfast, put my last and final costume on--Dopey of course. Packed my flip belt with necessities--cliff bars, cliff blocks, and a photo of a composite picture of 18 sweet motiviational letters from a first grade class at my school. It was such a somber moment. I was going to war. Going to war against my quitter self. I was solemn. I was nervous.
I loaded up on the bus, and don't remember much until I walked the long trek to the corral. It took forever. Again, walking my final walk.
I sat down in my corral, L again and just sat there, alone. I started getting sick. "What the hell am I doing here?" and a sense of panic filled me. The quitter in me wanted to just go get on that bus and head back to the hotel and go to bed.
Images of previous conversations from fellow Dopey people back home filled my head....in November, I met a man at a race who saw my Dopey in training shirt, and asked me if I was doing Dopey...."what's your long run?" he said. I laughed and said, "I don't have one." He looked me dead in the face and said, "yea you should defer." This man, by the way didn't finish Dopey because he didn't want to get up on the last day.
I sat there questioning what I should do. I prayed. I thanked God that my body wasn't as sore as it should be, and that I had more mobility than I should have had considering the amount of miles I had put on my body.
And just like that, it was almost time to start the race. The announcers, and Jeff Galloway were speaking about the humidity--and how you needed to be aware, and take care of your body during the humidity. It was near 100%. Let me just say, I hate sweating. I don't run in the summer outdoors---and just sitting there that morning, I was already sweating. I was doomed. If anything was going to get me down this race, it was going to be the humidity.
Runners, Set Go!
And I was off.
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