confirmation

i got an email from the columbus marathon people today.
among other things, it said the following:


you bet i am a runner.

i didn’t run 600 miles in 126 days and stand by various water fountains around town every long run sunday gagging on orange burst gu for nothing.

i better be a runner.

because i’ve sucked wind and brought up the rear of 10 big dog runs. i’ve done 36 mile repeats. i’ve lost 3 toenails and two boobs. i’ve swallowed 3 bottles full of ibuprofen (the big bottles - but not all at once). i’ve given copious amounts of money to hammer nutrition. i have sent umpteen panic emails to coach. i'm not sure how many times i needed to be talked off the ledge. maybe a handful. and i don’t even know how many times i told my husband “not tonight honey, i have a big dog run in the morning”. i’ve lived in my running clothes & a ponytail. i have sobbed in the pre-dawn darkness during mile repeats. i have cried stretching on my front stoop from the sheer punch drunk bliss of a run. i have white knuckled my way through club rides for cross training. i dropped more money on a single pair of running sneakers than i have ever dropped on shoes in my life. and i like shoes. i got a lot of them. only now i live in my slides cause they're the most comfortable after a run. i gave up gumdrops. sort of. okay, i snuck a few. but mostly i gave them up. i played countless mindgames during pool runs. i've come up with more haikus than i care to count. i hated those pool runs just about as many times as i finally learned to love them. i doubted myself dozens of times. i felt defeated, slow and discouraged a bunch. and i've been high as a kite iamrunnerwomanhearmeroar invincible just as many times, if not more.

yeah. i am a runner.

and i got my mojo back yesterday.
just in time. cause it looks like i'm registered for a marathon.