So brave

Well, as I suspected, my fear was not unfounded and my dad is now more popular than me, at least in terms of my blog. His guest post was a hit. I knew he'd really made it big when I was in the middle of teaching math and my friend came in to my classroom to tell me how much she loved it. Eric was extremely concerned that my dad's guest post got more comments than his, and I had to tell him that yes, it did (17 vs 12).

Fortunately for me, my dad and I are related, so that means there is hope for me to one day achieve that level of excellence in writing. That doesn't really help Eric, but he hates writing anyway.

My dad's first spectating experience,
my first marathon in 2010

As I mentioned in my recap, I was really enjoying my post race wine Sunday night. I had barely slept Saturday night, so Sunday night I passed out. It might have been my longest stretch of sleep without a bathroom break. 

Monday morning I had another lovely 4:30 am wakeup call, and a 6am flight back to Baltimore. A lot of people I talked to expressed shock that I was getting up so early the day after a marathon and going to work. The truth is, until athletic companies are willing to consider marathoners that come in closer to the 4 hour mark than the 2 hour mark "elites", deserving of sponsorships, I am forced to work for a living. So there I was Monday morning, expected to carry out the same responsibilities as everyone else who hadn't been rubbing Butt Paste onto their feet at 4am the day before as part of their hobby. So. Brave. 

The true challenge was that I had to work at my second job after school, meaning I'd be on my feet  from about 8:30 am to 9 pm,  so I took some extra care to refuel and started my day with an bagel sandwich from Dunkin Donuts including egg, cheese, and BACON. For some reason, bacon just calls my name the day after races. 

My quads were pretty sore, at the level where I have to grab something to pull myself up from a sitting position. Nothing else really hurt though. I feel that means I didn't really push hard enough in the race. I guess I knew that since I ran the first half much slower than the second (based on feel) because of the humidity, but it's still an annoying reminder. Or maybe wearing my calf sleeves just worked miracles. 

I wanted to run the day after the marathon to get ready for JFK (running on tired legs and all that), but running at 10pm after my 4:30 wakeup call requires way more dedication than I have to the cause. Instead, I ran 4 miles on Tuesday. My quads still hurt so I felt like I was partially hobbling, but it got done. Wednesday morning I ran 8 equally slow (most likely, I didn't wear a watch) miles. Both runs were in at least 95% humidity. FUN. I had a couple "remember those days when a marathon wasn't a training run and I could just rest the whole week after I ran one?" moments. Those were the days.

Do you crave any specific foods after a race? Especially foods that you don't normally eat?

Have you done anything OMGSOBRAVE lately?