You may remember a few months ago when I discovered the joys of volunteering. Well, another round of Paris Mountain Trail Runs has rolled around and I resumed my post as water station attendant in the wilderness. I even coerced Running Buddy into some chilly, early-morning volunteering as well.

We made a few changes this time around…in May, plenty of people wanted to know if we had Gatorade or just water. This time, they had that option. Although I must say that, as the Powerade hander outer, the preference was heavily weighted towards water. Midway through the race, I began crafting jingles in order to tempt runners into snagging a spiffy glass of blue stuff from me instead of the boring, ho-hum, oh-so-ordinary water from RB. What’s that? Handing out hydration isn’t a competition? It’s a good thing, because I would have LOST.

Speaking of lost, I was very thankful that a ranger helped us set up the water spot. If not, I would still be in the wilderness. (Sidenote: The good news is that there was a (sporadic) cell phone signal there, so I could have called Scott to rescue me. I can imagine that conversation now…”Where are you?” Um, on a trail. ”Which trail?” I don’t know. There are trees. “That’s not very helpful…”) This time, the journey to our station required a very bumpy, very rugged 15-minute drive in a gator.

It seemed like everyone was having fun, and I only heard about one sprained ankle this go-around. That’s not too bad, considering the added hazard of leaves covering the other hazards on the trail.

In other news, if anyone gets a chance you should go leave a comment on my friend D’s blog. She’s the person I’ve been “coaching” to a first half marathon and she’s in her last 2 weeks of training. Despite a busy work schedule, she’s done a fantastic job of getting her mileage in and ran 12 miles this past weekend. It’s taper time now and she’s got the 13.1 IN THE BAG, but I’m sure she’d appreciate some encouraging words from others who’ve made the same journey.

So, it turns out that I have NOT been poisoned by tainted beef. (Yet?) I wasn’t even aware of the latest recall until my friend DeAnna posted a story on her blog. Being a happy-go-lucky link-clicker, I clicked the link to read about the dreaded E. coli making the rounds through contaminated beef along the eastern seaboard. I try not to be an alarmist and the article said that the affected states started with the OTHER Carolina and headed north so it seemed like I didn’t have anything to worry about.

Sometimes, I think I like to find things to worry about. Bloom emailed yesterday to tell me that if I bought something-or-other beef between Setember 26 and October 8, I could bring it back for a full refund. Ok, I said to myself, no big deal. Because (1) I usually don’t shop at Bloom because they’re more expensive (just sometimes because everything is so pretty and neat and organized in there!), so maybe I didn’t even go there during those dates and (2) I don’t usually freeze meat, I buy it and use it before the expiration date so any potentially tainted beef is LONG gone. Just to know for sure, though, I went to our bank account and…sure enough, I went to Bloom on September 30.

This is where I forget all about the second reason I’m not about to die from potentially tainted beef: it was probably cooked into tacos or calzones or spaghetti sauce and eaten by October 2. A full month ago. If I was going to get sick, I’d galready be sick. Right? Right???

There’s only one thing to do to end the worry cycle: I call my friend D. I haven’t talked to her (except over the Internet, which totally counts) for…um…3 years? so she’s probably a little surprised to receive my call. She’s taken college classes in food borne illnesses, so she is my expert. She repeats rational reason #2 for me, and all is well. It turns out that I have not been poisoned by potentially tainted beef. Go me.

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In other news, I woke up at 5:24 this morning. ON PURPOSE. I know, it’s shocking. I’ve been avoiding my scheduled XT day, which was supposed to take the form of an evening spin class. There are lots of fun excuses…I’m hungry, I’m tired, I need to work late, I don’t want to have to take a second shower…annoying. Spin class is good for me — it’s great aerobic exercise that doesn’t require and pavement-pounding and it helps strengthen my quads and back. Win-win.

So, the only way I found to avoid the post-work lazies is to hit the morning spin class…which begins at 5:45. I’m not sure how I feel about this…getting my XT in? Good. Only having to take one shower today? Great. Not interfering with work? Awesome. Getting up before the crack of dawn? Um……………

It wasn’t that bad. It was definitely weird to be up that early and we’ll see how I’m feeling at about 3:00 this afternoon, but it is nice to get the training for the day out of the way. After a 2-month hiatus from spin, however, there is definitely going to be some soreness in the “sit down” parts. Oh, well. Getting faster, getting stronger…

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I am in love with daylight saving time. Really. On Monday, I woke up at 6:35 and it was light outside! I could run my 3 miles without freaking myself out every time a squirrel scampered across some leaves…I could see the dog mess before I stuck my foot in it…oh, it was glorious.  I know that winter will take over soon and the days will shorten, but for awhile it’s going to be great!

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Lots of subjects today. This slash that slash the other…as a “final thought,” I’d just like to note that running is feeling normal again.

The Spinx Runfest was on Halloween this year…and some of us took advantage:

Forrest Gump? Excellent use of the "running" theme. (We ended up beating him.)

The hot dog who OWNED US. Wow, she was fast!

Our favorite costumes...at first, we just thought it was people dressed as convicts. Nice effort, but having a "policeman" chase them was the icing on the cake. VERY impressive!

And our costumes? Based on "The Office." In Season 4, they hold a fundraiser 5k for rabies, "a disease that's already been cured." You...um...may need to have seen it to think it's funny. We think it's funny.

It was a nice day for running by Megan standards. Probably a little under 60 degrees with precipitation ranging from “mist” to “light rain” throughout. The Marathon Expert and I started out at a leisurely 9:20 pace…chatting and skipping over the first two water stations (and missing the 1 and 3 mile markers ENTIRELY. Not an easy accomplishment when the mile markers are 10-foot tall flags!).

At least 10 people recognized our t-shirts. It was fun to hear “nice shirts!” and get a laugh out of fellow runners and “The Office” fans. I proved that I have watched this episode ENTIRELY too many times by responding with quotes.

ME’s goal for the day was to finish without walking, while mine was to finish without throwing up. We managed to accomplish both goals, as I don’t believe walking 6 steps to drink a glass of water counts as a walk. It wasn’t the fastest time ever, but it was good fun and a good long run, which was all we ever intended it to be.

Happy Halloween, everyone! Congrats to all the other Spinx runners!

It’s the time of year when I get bored with my blog design, so don’t be surprised if things start changing over the next couple of weeks. WordPress doesn’t offer very many FREE templates, so I may not find anything to meet my exacting specifications…but we’ll see. I can promise that it will still have dark text on a light background. Beyond that, who knows?

In other news, I’m running a half marathon on Saturday. With three weeks of training. Boy, does this sound like my best idea ever or what?! Oh, wait…I forgot to tell you the most important part: I’ll be wearing a costume. I bet this sounds like a good idea now, doesn’t it? Yeah, I’m a genius.

Friday night, I spent a romantic evening with my husband…trying to learn how to drive his car. He’s been trying to convince me to give the five-speed Honda another try for the past, oh, most of our marriage. The current arguments are: (1) I have a longer commute and his car gets better gas mileage, (2) What if he was driving his car and was suddenly rendered unconscious…how would I get him to the hospital?, and (3) Once I learn, driving a manual will be really, really fun. To which, I have replied: it’s not THAT much farther of a drive, this is what cell phones and good Samaritans are for, and NO, I will not…because I cannot.

You see, we’ve been down this road before. The first lesson in negotiating a manual transmission occurred about five years ago. It began with Scott patiently explaining the whole clutch to gas balance and ended with me walking away. I’m a little fuzzy on the details, but I may or may not have been crying sobbing hysterical AND I may or may not have left the engine on and allowed the wretched car to coast down a hill with my husband still in the passenger seat.

Ok, so all of that actually happened. Scott pulled the emergency brake and both he and the car were fine, but I was traumatized. It’s just so complicated! Clutch in, shift gear, gas in, clutch out slowly…no, crap, killed it. Ok, now I have to start it…attempt 1, attempt 2, attempt 3…ok, it’s started. Now, clutch in, shift gear, gas in, clutch out slowly…dang it! I let off the gas. Killed it AGAIN. Eventually, I managed to get to first gear and drive around the circle part of my in-law’s driveway. Then, Scott decided that it was time to tackle second gear. Off we went down the driveway (this is the country, it’s a long driveway), I attempt to shift and kill the bleepity bleepin’ machine for what feels like the 700th time. I now have the choice of trying to reverse the car all the way back up the driveway or negotiating a 3-point turn. Scott suggests a 3-point turn, and it is 6 attempted starts, some tears, and a suggestion from Scott to “try to calm down” later that I choose to exit the vehicle. With him still in it. Rolling down a hill.

So, Friday. Because my husband is persistance itself, I somehow find myself back in the driver’s seat of my nemesis. I make a big show of rolling my eyes at the futility of this entire enterprise, then listen as Mr. Engineer explains the whole process once more. He’d left the engine running for me, so all I had to do was shift it into first…which I did. Okokok, it was  little shaky, but it worked. Interesting. We circle the parking lot at an impressive 15 mph, then he has me stop and shift into first again. Which I do. Again. By the end of the lesson, I’ve managed to get it up to second and I only killed it once. That went much better than I imagined. Huh.

When Scott and I drive to and from Kansas (a 15 hour drive…so  much fun!), we normally take the Interstate-only route up to St. Louis and then across Missouri. Just for a change, however, one time we decided to take the state highways across the southern half of Missouri. It was all sunshine and happiness until we neared the Illinois border…when we had to cross the Mississippi River. Um, my goodness. Why Grandma, what a scary, steep, two-lane bridge going over a gigantic river you have! I suggest to Scott that we find a different route that goes ANYWHERE ELSE. Anywhere else except over this bridge…

Of course we go over the bridge. Do you want to know what’s past the big, scary bridge? A right-hand turn into an only slightly less scary bridge over the Ohio River. Augh! Clearly, we survived both…and have told stories about the scary bridges for years. Then, for some reason I can’t remember, it makes sense last year to drive the southern route instead of the northern route through Missouri. I spend 5 hours in fear. We get to the scary bridge, and…it’s not that bad. I mean, it’s no picnic, but it’s better than I’d imagined. Huh.

There is a point, and it’s this: I sincerely hope the marathon will be one more experience I can place in this category. That I keep up with the training, listen to the Marathon Expert when she tells me to slow down, and cross the finish line thinking, “wow, this wasn’t so bad.” Painful, sure. Scary, absolutely. Requiring hard work and dedication, duh. But NOT impossible…because sometimes, I will admit to you…impossible is what it seems.

When you squirt soap from a dispenser, does it ever — just for a minute — look like a slug to you? Hmm, must just be me. This week, I thought one of the cats was playing with a pen. There had been a pen on the table, and you know how cats are…anything small and movable must find its way to the floor. When the second cat joined the first, however, I knew there was something else going on. That something — a slug. On the kitchen rug. A slug on a rug — blug!

Random encounters with rug slugs aside, I **love** fall. (The two asterisks let you know that that’s true. ) It’s been gloomy and rainy all week, but I can’t think of a better start for marathon training. Saturday morning, the day of my first long run with Marathon Expert, Scott broke the news that it was about 45 degrees and raining. Well, I said. Of course it is. What better way to pick up right where I left off? How many long runs did RB, ME, and I run the Swamp Rabbit Trail in the rain while prepping for Louisville? A lot, that’s for certain. Enough to make my shoes reek and inspire me to always leave a spare shirt, pair of sweats, and towel in my car.

I met ME at Furman, and we set off for our 8 miles. I was quite nervous about this…we all know that I haven’t trained much since August, and the last time I ran for more than hour at one time was…um…it was…April? Oh, boy. And then there’s the fact that I had (spontaneously? optimistically? foolishly?) signed myself up for a half marathon in 2 weeks. Oh, boy. You can see why I’m a little nervous.

I was pleasantly surprised. For one thing, it was raining more at home than it was in Furman. Not enough to be entirely wet and miserable. Even more surprising, eight miles actually felt…really good. I didn’t see that one coming! Sunday, Wednesday, and Thursday’s runs felt much, much worse. Almost like a conscious effort was required for each and every step. Saturday’s long run, by comparison, was like skipping through a field of daisies.

Of course, it won’t always be this easy. You don’t have to tell me. I’ve been there before. For the first long run of the marathon season, however, it makes me very happy. It gives me hope.

I’ve been looking for the off switch to my slacker mode, and I believe I have not only found it but determinedly switched the sucker to “off.” I have a bit of unfinished business to take care of and now is the time to get serious.

Ok, so it’s actually NEXT week that marks the official start to marathon training. But I gave myself goose bumps up in that first paragraph…I sound so dedicated and focused. Ooh. Shiver. Despite what my recent puny mileage and lack of actual running posts (to what is supposed to be a running blog) might tell you, I am actually very serious about my 26.2 goal. I don’t want to fail again. I want to cross the finish line in Myrtle Beach.

I think about Louisville often…trying to figure out what went wrong so I can make sure not to do it again. As near as I can tell, I made three mistakes. First, I signed up for a mid-spring marathon when I hate running in the heat. This wasn’t real bright, and I paid for it when race day turned out to be the first warm day of the season so I had no time to acclimate.

Second, I went out aggressively even though it was my first marathon and the high temperature for the day approached 90*. That was even less bright. I know better and I should have been more patient.

Third, I underestimated the distance. This is probably the stupidest thing I could have done because I’d never run over 20 miles before; however, I felt so good at the beginning that I let myself get caught up in the excitement and crowds, assuming that each mile would feel as good as the first 9.

I’m doing my best to learn from these mistakes. I know that February in Myrtle Beach has a chance of being warmer than I’d like, but the odds are more in my favor than for late April in Louisville. I’m trying to channel my friend the turtle — I want my training to be patient and consistent. I’m also increasing my longest long run to 22 miles. I think it might help psychologically to get accustomed to a little more discomfort before the big day.

That’s the plan, at least. Then, hopefully I’ll be able to take care of that piece of unfinished business.

In other unfinished business:

• My disgusting Terminator Eye is starting to heal. Now, the red is primarily an outline for the iris on my left eye. Sort of like a scar, which I think looks pretty tough. You want to mess with me? I’m not afraid to take you out…with my eye. Yeah.
• The movie sorta-quotes were from Wayne’s World 2 (congrats, Kyle!) and Overboard.
• I got awesome tickets to Wicked, which will be in Greenville in January/February. This has nothing to do with anything, but they’re really, really good seats and I just wanted to share. Yay!

By all means, make yourself at home. I cheerfully welcome your 50-degree lows and crisp breezes. I thank you for the opportunity to turn the air conditioner off and open the windows. It’s going to be great to finally let in some fresh air and watch the cats dash from window to window in an attempt to experience all of the “sniffs.”

Contented sigh.

Guess what, guys? It’s going to be a nice week. The midwest is sending us a cold front, for which I am (as you can probably tell) supremely grateful. I’m going to try ride the coattails of this weather-induced cheerfulness to a more positive outlook this week. One major obstacle to enduring optimism is that I find much more to blog about as a whiner. A second obstacle is what Scott is calling the Terminator Eye.

I awoke Saturday morning to discover that I had broken a blood vessel in my eye. I’m preferring to think that this is somehow work-related and that I have, literally, read until my eyes bled. In all actuality, I  probably sneezed or coughed or poked myself in the stupid eye while asleep. Not quite as good a story, but there you go. Scott researched the freakish-looking eye on WebMD and discovered that it’s basically the ocular equivalent of a bruise and will go away on its own in a week or two.

Once the duties of a caring husband had been satisfied, Scott turned to movie quotes in an attempt to inject some humor into the situation.

While I was moaning about how ugly I looked: “Now, honey. We like the way you look. Normally you look real pretty. It’s just that you don’t right now.”

When I told him that everyone was staring at my eye: “Why would anyone be looking at that weird, weird eye?”

There were a couple of others, but I can’t remember them now. I will, however, award Megarunr Super Cool Points to whoever can identify the other two movies from the (butchered) quotes above.

…except the ones in this picture. Ah, the Fail Blog. So much enjoyment.

The “Running Times” marketing coordinator tells me so. This morning, I received an email offering me a trial issue of “Running Times,” which just so happens to be dedicated to serious runners like me…those running “at the front of the pack.” Snort. Chuckle. Um, guys. I’m not sure how you got my email address, but you’re soliciting part of the contingent of the GREAT MIDDLE. You won’t find a “front runner” here! And don’t think I don’t know that you’re published by the same company as a certain other running magazine whose name I won’t mention. A little flattery is not enough to overturn the boycott.

In other news…I miss running with my “buddies” — Running Buddy is taking a well-earned vacation from running and Marathon Expert has been abducted by graduate school. We can still run together on the weekends, of course, but during the week I’m on my own. I am discovering that, when left to my own devices, the results are slightly unimpressive.

However, the impending doom (I mean that in the most cheerful way possible) of marathon training is doing what crazy plans and mental kicks to the behind could not. Despite the warm temperatures and moisture-laden air, I’ve been getting a daily run in. I may be prouder of this accomplishment than I should be, but I’ll take the successes in whatever form they come.

I’ve also been continuing to wean myself from junky sugar in an occasional, haphazard way. I can’t claim any real success with this initiative…there’s not really a plan in place, so some weeks I make reasonably good choices and some weeks I can’t resist the siren call of the chewy Sprees. I have discovered some organic juices that are out of this world. Yum! I’ve also discovered that there’s extra sugar in flavored yogurt for a reason. I experimented with buying “plain all natural” yogurt and adding my own sliced strawberries. What a great idea! What a horrible, horrible taste. Yuuuuuck. Perhaps plain yogurt is best reserved for cooking or smoothies…you know, times when the preparation process completely eliminates the original taste. Lesson learned.

My brother phoned to tell me that he received his cookies yesterday, and that they arrived all in one piece. “Well, it’d be ok if they were crumbled,” I said, “I think they’d make a good cereal.” Looks like I may have a few more lessons to learn…