The Third 20: Demons in My Bowels

"The devil’s stomach cannot digest the Church of God."

Today is Sunday, when the believers display their faith through rest and contemplation and heathens like me go for a 20-mile run. I started the morning agnostic, but by 9:15, when the churchgoers were hittin' the kneelers, my digestive tract gave the first indication that it has accepted Satan as its lord and saviour.

My brilliant plan to run a half-marathon preceded by 7 miles to total a 20-miler (I'm a math genius, no?) turned out to be one of my dumber ideas (and I've had many dumb ideas). I do not recommend this plan. I also had the idea to drink a Gatorade-Motrin-Coffee cocktail with breakfast. Plus, I expended too much energy on anxiety over the logistics and making the race start on time during the 7-mile pre-amble. By mile 5 of the half-marathon, my stomach began to writhe with most unholy intentions.

I wasn't going to race this one because Nate didn't want me to wear out during these high mileage weeks, but there was a certain sense of urgency to finish the race and make a deposit to the gods of the underworld in the great porcelain collection bowl. I was scheduled to run the last six miles at 8:20s (my marathon pace), which I managed without much trouble given the other trouble I was having a hard time managing. So my average pace for the entire race was great for a 20-mile training run.

The weird thing is that I reset and started Garmin for the race before I crossed the start, and its overall time was 1:50 with a pace of 8:22, but the race chip reported my time was 1:51 with a pace of 8:29. My watch may have a lot of flaws, but the stopwatch feature is not one of them. I'm trying not to get all riled up about the discrepancy, however, primarily because I wasn't supposed to race the thing, but also because any amount of riling just encourages the little demons having a raging kegger in my intestines.

So three 20-milers down, three to go. I can't believe it, but they're actually getting less scary. Gasp. The devil made me say it. Eek--pitchfork to the gut. Gotta go.