On playlists, pre-race nerves, and the (Washington) Post

There's no denying it-we're in the home stretch.  The Marine Corps Marathon starts in less than three days (courtesy of the stress-inducing countdown that we've managed to ignore for the past few months as the number fell inexorably lower), and both Monica and I are in the last stage of our taper--the part that comes with all the nerves and apparently a feeling of being overstuffed thanks to our new glycogen reserves.  Hot.

There are no doubt thousands of articles, blogs, and seasoned runners willing to provide advice on how to combat the intense stress we're going through now, but true to style, I'd rather stay calm through a series of distractions and occasionally reminding myself that we have trained for this and will be fine.  Our last long run we did together (16 miles a few weeks ago) was fantastically reassuring and steady at a 10 min/mile pace, and provided a big enough boost in confidence that despite my necessary downtime to let my muscles get their act together (thanks, plantar fasciitis) I feel like I'll be fine. 

This is good, because almost all of the articles about the MCM that we've seen over the past week or so (Monica's mother has been sending her basically everything she sees, which is lovely) have somehow managed to mention the fact that some people don't finish the race (see the Post's article entitled Not everyone will finish the Marine Corps Marathon. That's what makes it a race. Seriously guys? Not helping). 

Gonna move through the pain

Time for a reality check. Straight up truth: running sucks sometimes.  Pounding the pavement mile after mile can be downright painful no matter how carefully you've trained. It's been a few months since I've legitimately raced and my muscles have conveniently forgotten the burning, leaden, jelly like sensation that inevitably sets in during the final miles.  However, with the marathon looming in less than 10 days (OMFG), there's probably no better time to give myself a healthy psychological kick in the ass and gear up for the impending pain train.

For your entertainment, I submit a visual reminder courtesy of those sneaky brightroom photographers. Seriously, guys, could you get ONE shot of me not looking like I want to die?

Oh hey heyyyy. Who's that hottie?

I was tempted to post some of Kim's sexy photos as well but I didn't want to be shanked in my sleep...

Please don't slow me down

From an early age, I've constantly been told to slow down. While family, professors, bosses, and friends may couch it differently, calling me out for being hasty, slap dash, poor attention to detail, ADD, careless, jumping into things, it all boils down to one simple fact: I hate doing things slowly.  Attribute it to my desire to cram as much as humanly possible into a single minute, competitive nature, or general lack of patience, but either way, this mindset has gotten me into more trouble than I care to mention.

Case in point:

3rd grade teacher: "Are you sure you're finished? You only took 15 minutes to complete the test...it's 6 pages!"
little mm: "Of course! I even quadruple checked my answers (clearly a boldfaced lie). I'm just a super awesome fast reader! [cue winning grin]" This is when I learned a valuable academic lesson - they don't give gold stars for 16/30s.

And don't give me the benefit of the doubt that wisdom came with age. Lab rats learn faster than me. Take last (or any if we're being really honest) weekend for example:

Liver: "You need to slow down with those drinks, Munn. You're crazy if you think I can handle 10 tequila shots in a row."
MM: "STFU, internal organ, you don't know ME. I do what I please." I think we all know how this ends. First word's a color and phrase rhymes with whack pout?