Cin Sity Running

20-mile Oversleep-a-thon

April 5, 2009 – 2:38 pm

The 20-mile run from Ault Park was scheduled for 7 AM Saturday morning.

I woke up Saturday morning at 5 AM and thought I could get one more hour of sleep in. Not a chance. Next thing I know the alarm clock says 6:50 AM and I haven’t even rolled out of bed yet.

As quickly as possible, I:

• Threw on shorts and a shirt
• Put some Body Glide on
• Remembered to put the nipple guards on
• Ate a banana
• And, packed some goo and energy beans

I was on the road by 7 AM, but it took 20 minutes to get over to the park. By the time I arrived almost everyone had left.

I started at about 7:30 AM.

And, while running around the circle, I noticed that something didn’t feel quite right. Looking down, I noticed that I’d put my shorts on backwards.

So I had to run into the woods and get naked for a few minutes while hoping that none of the traffic police saw me.

Still, it was a beautiful day. Pretty soon I started to catch up to some people. One of them gave  me a map after I realized I’d left mine in the woods.

I felt good. I’d eaten a lot of carbs the night before and I probably started at about a 8:15 mile pace.

Remember, I kept saying to myself, save something for the hill on the way back.

I made it up Delta and headed down Erie. Coming up Marburg when I turned I could see everyone who had started earlier. I saw Glenna and then not too far behind, Dennis.

This was stupid, but I thought I might be able to catch them. I focused on setting a steady pace that I hoped was just fast enough.

Coming up Delta I passed a number of people from the team. Still felt good.

It wasn’t until going down the hill into Mt. Lookout though that I caught up with Dennis. He was still setting a pretty good pace.

At the bottom of the hill, I realized I wouldn’t catch Glenna and it was probably a bad idea to continue to try. So I ran with Dennis along Eastern Ave. Nice and flat. Save some for the hills.

This was a good thing because after the hill up into Eden Park, I don’t think I had much left. Now it was just a matter of persistence and stubbornness. Things hurt but I kept trying to pace with people going about the same speed.

One of the guys I was running with took a face dive while trying to drink and run over the sidewalks in O’Brienville.

By the time I got up to Observatory, there wasn’t much left. I stopped to talk to Rod at the last water stop and just tried to build a gradual pace for the hill.

The final hill hurt but I made it in just over 3 hours. Not a bad time at all. Especially for having shown up late after oversleeping. Ug. Note to self. Set alarm for marathon.

p.s. Breakfast at First Watch in Convington was absolutely outstanding. Above is a pic of Glenna and Dennis at the First Watch.