OH! SOOO MUCH FUN!!!

Okay, this was the BEST time I have EVER had!!!! How happy and fun???? I was so happy and having so much fun I had to fight back the tears a few times! Can you overdose and die from being so happy?! OMG! Most of the time I was concentrating, but then I'd just be out-of-body and going, "Oh! Oh! Oh! OMG! Oh!" and then the tears would start and I'd, like, think to myself, "Yo - dude, are you, like, bipolar or something? Get a grip." About a third of the way I was commenting on how nice the day was and the woman next to me said, "Yeah, isn't it great?" And I said, "I am so in love with this shit!"
(That was a long, run-on paragraph.)
And it just got better...
I started the race on time and walking/talking with Cassandra. She's often DFL, but she's an awesome freind so I stayed with her the first couple of miles.
This year is supposed to be casual. I don't want to totally slack-off, but I also don't want to kill myself mentally, emotionally, or physically. Maybe next year, but this year I want to have fun.
But the jets were on. The jets got faster. The jets went into afterburn. My body just didn't fade at all. In fact, if the course had been flat, I would have had negative splits. At the 5th aid station (also the 3rd aid station), the guy exclaimed, "Holy crap! You passed like 30 people! And you're in 30th place."
Right after that, we were into some VERY narly snow. It was everything - sugar snow that was like running on ball-bearings and grease, ice, mud, mud-puddles, LOTS of post-holing with sugar snow in the bottom. Your foot would lurch forward, backward, sideways, stick on top and suddenly break through and plunge a foot deeper.
AND I WAS LOVING IT!
(Am I shouting too much? Sorry.)
Oh! Oh! Oh! I love narly.
I kept telling myself, "Look, this snow is no different than hills - don't fight it. You don't run by pace - you run by effort. Don't fight the snow. Same effort. Same effort. Everyone is dieing in this. I train in this. This is my element!"
Then it started getting rocky. It's got some of the most narly downhill rocks of any course I know. Only the Leadville Marathon compares, as far as I know. I just kept telling myself, "Billy goat legs! Billy goat feet! I'm the Master of Gravity!" I passed several more people along the way.
Finally the finish was in sight - and so was 23rd place! I gradually gained on him. I was definitely going to pass him. I did! And he poured it on - so did I! He jumped into a sprint! So did I! He passed me! So did - uh, well - I sped up, anyways. We were both all the way up on our toes and then I just thought, "Whatever! He spent the whole race ahead of me and the only way I'm going to pass him is if I risk a heart attack." But it was a beautiful finish for both of us.
The RD, John, asked me if it was fun. OH!!! Man I told HIM!

Thank you everyone who wished me luck, both here on the blog and at the Tuesday & Thursday runs!

Okay, I'm calm now.

I do say, I had a rather enjoyable spot of fun.

I hope everyone else out there had at least 1/4 of the fun I had. If you only had that much fun, then maybe you should calm down before you rupture a happy-vein, or something.
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