Black Coffee in Bed - Squeeze

I'm drinking coffee too late, 7:42 pm, because I want to write this blog and I have still not gone out to do my 5k for the day. That's me. Non-stop Action Jackson. Lifestyles of the Cute and Geriatric Acting. That's my jam. Try and keep it cute. Green with envy is not your color. 


Speaking of which, I wonder if I will vomit on Sunday. I know that during my 20 mile jaunt, complete with a large swath of walking in the middle, I felt waves of potential upchuck quite a few times. Surprisingly, I accepted these feelings at the time out of complete exhaustion, and the knowledge that I have, for sure, barfed many, MANY times in life leading up to those moments for much stupider reasons, also self-induced. Today I checked out  34 page digital Runner's Guide I got in my inbox to find out where all the Aid Stations are. Some of the highlights: all 12 stations include water, electrolyte drink by some corporation that's gonna make a ton of money on this thing, and medical staff, which I find both comforting, and doom-inducing. Do a lot of people need medical attention? What kind of medical attention? Am I going to perish? Can I save myself the humiliation of not being able to finish by feigning an injury? A twisted ankle? Severe dehydration? Dislocated hip? The dreaded foot? 


No. 
No.
No.


It's the coffee talking. And while we're on the topic of coffee, let me be clear right now: In spite of the fact that I do, for whatever reason, feel willing to vomit at some point with little or no embarrassment,  I will not, under any circumstances, be shitting in my pants in honor of such a momentous occasion. I don't care how epic it makes the story. I just don't want to. I don't want to crap in my pants, nor do I want to just take a pitstop and drop trou on the side of the road for a dump. I am not going to win, nor do I plan on being so driven that I will lose my faculties. Also, I plan to rise at 3:30 am to make sure there is plenty of time for all that to go ahead and ease on down the road before I even hit the pavement. So there is no reason for me to enter the annals of history, and I imagine you'll pardon the noun choice there, as an obscure Jewish lesbian who shit her pants for no reason at all. There will be no Radiolab episode in which I am celebrated or eviscerated. No one will do an expose on the extreme lengths I went to. I plan to just be an average lady, doing a somewhat insane thing, stopping demurely by a Port-o-Jane and retaining the dignity of her bowels for the duration. Thanks for asking. And frankly, I am dumbfounded by how many people have asked. 


My brain is a colander. I can retain exactly nothing anyone tells me or asks me. I feel agitated. I am anxiety filled and emotional. I am scared, small, pre-emptively apologetic, scattered and excited. The marathon is in 5 days. How did I become a person who even knows that fact, let alone a person who has to go pick up their number and their timing chip at an Expo on Saturday? 


5 days. 
I feel nuts.


How about another disjointed thought? 
Great.


My physical therapist friend Kevin suggested I do a plank pose for thirty seconds before I set out on my training runs. Then a plank on each side. Each of these to be followed by some calf stretches to help my weird foot. I know it seems strange, or it did to me, that doing a yoga pose before running would help, but I have found that getting my stomach muscles engaged and firing before setting out, changes what are usually a dreadful first 2-4 miles. These exercises have helped my body feel stronger, faster. I like that. Although, it doesn't make me warm to the idea of yoga any. 


And: tangent!


You know what I want to do? I want to re-join the gym when this is over and do water aerobics again. Noodles for everyone! I did it once with my friend Ali and it was so gaddamn fun. This lady stalked the edge of the pool with her whistle like a drill sergeant, blowing the thing up while all the gray hair bobbed in the pool. Gray hair, Ali's butch crew cut, and me. Those old dames really live it up, I tell you. 


Gear shift!


I can't wait to be forty. Fuck Old as Sucky. Fuck an age hating America. Fuck you America for putting women out to pasture so damn early. Fuck your impossible standards and your dumb ideas about the godhead of youth. I mean youth is great. Sure. Awesome. But forty? Shit, I been waiting 39 years for this. I always thought that when I hit forty, I finally had a shot at being really sexy. Like so damn foxy and so in my own skin and gray hair and wrinkly smile lines and freckles turned to age spots that I could walk in the world with my musculature all straight and tidy. I don't know why I waited to take care of myself until now, but that's just how it went. So be it. And forty's just right down the block and I feel like my power is waiting right there for me, all dressed up and ready to spin me around life like a goddamn prom queen. Or a gas station attendant. Because I wanted to be both. And now I am. 


Ok.
Here I go.
Out into the fog and the wind.
Almost there.
To the starting line.
I feel grateful to be here at all
and more grateful still
to have my awkward gait
to carry me to grace.


Love,
Sara Elise