Permission slip

I need your help. Specifically, I need your blessing.

Tomorrow I'm running my first race since, well, I can't even remember (maybe the Webster Du in July?), but it was a long time ago. And despite my promising February - March training, I am not ready to race like my last half marathon. I'm cool with that. The St. Louis Marathon was my first, and I'm excited to be back on the course. And I've been looking forward to a physical experience that will tire me out to knock me into a peaceful sleep at night, even if it may include 12:00 miles. But I realized that my shame has reached an unacceptable level when I considered not wearing my chip for tomorrow's half marathon.

So you wouldn't see. So you wouldn't point and laugh.

In the long term I should consider, oh, not blogging (at all) and voluntarily sharing my race experiences, or finding less judgmental friends. Or maybe I should just stop projecting. None of those solutions can be realized in less than 12 hours, so instead I simply say, "Hey. I'm run-walking a half marathon tomorrow on purpose. Don't laugh at me. I need the exercise."

This ship is not running so smoothly right now. I keep having freak accidents and injuring myself temporarily (have you ever gotten punched in the nose? It bleeping hurts. I managed to accidentally punch myself in the nose a couple weeks ago; now my nose makes a cracking noise if I push on it, and of course I keep pushing on it. Wouldn't you?), and mini-crises keep popping up. I know it's part of the ebb and flow of existing-- after all, I had an accident-free December and January-- but I'm looking forward to hitting calm waters soon. Somehow I think hanging out for a morning of poop-butt running (hopefully sans poo) will make that happen. But it really sours my happy mental image to see you smugly checking the race results.

So there it is. I'll be back tomorrow with some "race" stories and such, and you can bet your asp I'm hitting the beer (even if it is at mile 3 instead of mile 24 like the last time I was on this course). I'm hoping to finish around 2:25, but I've got nothing to rush home to but my kittyman and my last legal writing assignment of the semester. So keep laughing-- just not at me. ;-)