"Remind me to tell you the thong story."

This is totally what it was like.  If I played tennis.

This weekend reminded me that my friends are amazing and that I am spoiled rotten to have them in my life.

When I mentioned to Sarah (who finished her 70.3 IRONMAN in 5:43:30 BTW) I was thinking about running my first 10K because I was feeling horrible that I quit Jillian and needed to prove something to myself she was all, "I'll find a great race and run it with you!"  Score.

Sarah found a cheap great race close to home and we decided to go for it.  I was excited but not terribly nervous; any kind of new distance is a guarantee for a personal record, and I wanted to aim for a 1:06:00 finish.  This seemed fairly attainable and all was good.

Then I got a visitor.

I've never been one of those girls who bemoaned her monthly; sure, it's not the most pleasant of events, but it's just a part of life, you know?  But something happened to my body after I had Ezra.  I went from being a girl that had a normal uncomfortable time during her period to a girl who dreamed of mainlining Aleve and that arranged her schedule around the dreaded Day Two.  Why did my body change so drastically?

Of course I have a theory about that. Remember how I'm pretty sure that Ezra is my Siamese twin? I think that after carrying him in my womb for nine months my body is staging an ongoing rebellion that he had to leave.  And so every month my uterus organizes a full scale battle on my mind, body, and emotions.  It will punish me until menopause or until I have another baby.  (Which I think about all the freaking time.)(Because all my friends are having babies.)(And they are adorable.)(The babies, not my friends.)(Although my friends are adorable, too.)(But then I remember that  babies don't sleep.)(And I do.)(And that is awesome.)

So basically a civil war is being fought every 28 days inside me and my uterus is the battleground.

Someone was all like, "Do you know what I should knit?  An angry uterus."  And they did it.

Thursday night was menstruation's golden time of arrival.  Which made the dreaded Day Two fall on Saturday.  The same Saturday of my first 10K.  Thankfully the wicked diarrhea I had from my delicious Friday night Applebee's dinner woke me up at four a.m. and totally distracted me from the awfulness that is a direct result of Day Two.

But I'm a "Game ON" kind of girl.  Sarah picked me up and we arrived at the race early enough to get parking, register, and use the porta potty.  It was about 45 degrees.  I wore pants and my ALABAMA sweatshirt (which only becomes a point of contention when they play Michigan or Michigan State)(Roll Tide) and was chilly enough to wish I'd worn more.  This worked out well as I was looking forward to the start of the race just so I could get moving.

Sarah wore her fancy running watch, so she was going to keep track of our splits (privately) and tell me if I needed to pick up the pace to reach my goal.  This way I wouldn't obsess over the numbers and could run according to what my body (in it's current rebellious state) could handle.  (Have I mentioned yet how great she is/spoiled I am?)

The run was both fantastic and horrid.  It just depends on when you asked me.

I told Sarah I wasn't going to be much for talking this run.  Since my stellar commentary is primarily what makes me so fun to be around, you will be saddened to know I said about three things during the six (point two) miles we ran. The first was, "Lowe's" as a shorthand response to Sarah asking what we ended up getting my Dad-in-law for his birthday.  I meant we got him a Lowe's gift card, not that we actually bought him the whole store, but since Sarah has common sense and college degrees, she totally understood what I meant.

I also said, "Remind me to tell you the thong story."  I don't remember what made this relevant to whatever she was sharing at the time, but I had a thong story to share, and good golly I did not want to miss the chance to tell it.  The Thong Story sadly was more my opinion and personal experiences with thongs, but did include the words and phrases, "don't want anything in my crack", "I'm bringing free ballin' back", "but then she told me, "free ballin' never went away."  Don't worry, I was able to eventually communicate all these things boisterously to Sarah while we were stretching amid 1500 people who were meandering about the post-race area.

I finished with, "I think I'm gonna die (huff, pant, huff) or puke."  I was not being dramatic.  Mile 5 to the end was painful.  At one point I thought about crying.  I heard someone call my name during this time, and when I turned around and saw someone I knew walking the 5K portion the information barely registered.  All I could think was, "Don't freaking trip because you will not get back up."  My split for the last mile was a lot faster than the first 5 because pleaseGodletitend.

I finished in 1:04:08.  Hoorah!  I was 251 out of the 344 that ran the 10K.  Apparently there is a medal for 251st place; it's called "Participation."  (But my family was so cute; when I came home with my medal, they got all wide-eyed and said, "Did you win?")

In conclusion, take that, Aunt Flo.  You might try to knock me down, but you will not keep me there. Because Eminem sang "Won't Back Down" in a continuous 20 second loop in my head the entire race I am a Navy Seal at heart, and we don't let a little internal insurgency stop us from getting the job done.

It truly was a Red October Run.  (*giggle snort*)
And I was surfing the Crimson Tide. (OMLawd, someone stop me.)