So the 29th of July...

It was pretty ridiculous, and what's even more ridiculous is that I didn't plan on doing it when I first started. Initially I had only planned on doing 16-17 miles like I normally would have done on Monday (but I didn't due to me being sort of depressed and not really wanting to do anything, much less running for 2.5 hours). So anyways I head off to what has become my standard "long run" route, which basically consists of me running to Alyssa's house and running back.

I started kinda early (10-15 minutes before 4:00pm) so it was pretty hot outside, but I planned on meeting Madeleine for guitar hero or something later on in the evening, so I didn't want to be all gross when I met her and I still wanted to do my long run. So yea, it's 4:00pm, and I'm thinking "hey this isn't that bad" -- and it's not that bad (its maybe like 95 degrees outside), for AZ. But sure enough, 40 minutes later I'm drenched and feeling pretty horrible. I figure I'll just suffer through it and once I make it to Alyssa's house maybe I'll chill at the Safeway nearby or something until I feel better.

So anyways I make it down to her house, and I was surprised to notice a different car there. It's a 2000 Chevy Prizm, brown. I rememeber Alyssa telling me a little while ago that she got a Chevy Prizm, but she didn't tell me that she was back in town. So now I'm kinda upset (maybe I'm not thinking rationally because I have no water, and I'm dying because of the heat). I know she doesn't owe me anything but still that kinda hurts.

So I'm angry now, and I decide 16-17 miles just isn't going to cut it. No, this is going to need an epic number of miles to make me feel better. I don't know if its because I'm vindictive, or insecure, or both, or something else entirely, but somehow I feel better when I run a lot because I feel as if I am "beating" people. For me it's like a huge "fuck you for rejecting me." I don't really know how I made that association in the first place but the net result is that I run a lot more when I'm upset. I think I wouldn't run much at all if I was happy.

So I text madeleine and ask her if she wants to go running, and somehow I accidentally guilt her into running 5 or 6 miles with me. The only problem is that the earliest she could start was around 6:45-7:00. It's like 5:10 or 5:15, I can't really remember at the time, but I'm only like 7-8 miles from her house if I just went there directly. So I would be waiting around for a good long time if I just went there directly. So now I decide I'll head over to Reid park, which is about 7-8 miles from where I'm at, but about 4 miles from her house. I get over to Reid surprisingly quick, even with stopping at Burger King on Columbus and 22nd to check if Janeth was working (she wasn't, but I grab some free water anyways), and decide that the 4 mile trip from there directly to Madeleine's just isn't going to cut it, unless I suddenly bust out the 11-12 minute miles.

Unfortunately this is about where my knowledge of the streets ends, but i figure I can just make it west to cambell and head north to speedway and then head east again and cut back down to broadway. It seemed like a good idea until I pretty much hit Aviation Highway and was basically forced to head north on Plummer (it wasn't a big deal though, because now I knew where I was). Oh well, but I just continued with the plan. Now mentally I had been keeping track of approximately how many miles I went (easy since they're mostly straight roads), and I figured (correctly) that 24 should be right around Columbus and Broadway. I got stopped by the light there, but now I realize that it was fortunate, since I looked at my watch and saw the 3:04:02 time indicated in my log.

This is important because up until now, even though I wanted to, I could never do '24 in the rain'; so basically I feel like I accomplished something, even though there's no rain.

Anyways, I run the last mile or so to Madeleine's and end up at her door at ~6:59pm, or 3:12:07 from when I started.

And that's pretty much where all the good news ends. I had to wait a bit for her to get ready and stuff so I loitered around a bit. BIG MISTAKE. I may have spent like 5 minutes max, but it was 5 minutes of not running, and I think my legs were like "oh so he's done now. initiate shutdown procedure." When I started running again, everything was hurting. I had her stretch me but it didn't help too much. I just decided to suck it up and keep going, because I still had like 6 miles left. Interestingly enough if I sprinted I felt a lot better (how does that happen?) but that is obviously not sustainable. I know I was going pretty slow because I felt like I was slowing Madeleine down the entire way. She said she understood because I had already done a ridiculous amount of mileage that day but I still felt bad. Somehow I made it up to the AM/PM about a mile away from my house, and thats when it all went to hell. Madeleine rolled her ankle on something right around there so I said we should just stop and take a look at it since I didn't want her to get hurt. Obviously I didn't learn my lesson about stopping after a long run if you still have running left. But personally I think it was worth it, since I would have felt way worse if she got injured from it. But anyways this time was even worse, and I couldn't even walk. I tried sprinting (since that still felt okay), but I was only able to get like 300-400m in before I couldn't sustain it anymore.

At that point, I decided to take a nap.

No joke.

I asked madeleine if she wanted to go back to my house (I had my keys) and get my car or something but she said she would just wait with me.

I have no idea how long the nap took but it was literally the best nap ever even though it was on hard concrete.
I felt good enough to walk and we walked back the last 1000 or so meters until we got to my house. I took a shower and then launched some fireworks with Madeleine before I drove her back. I apologized profusely to her parents (they were like "You really ran 24 miles before you got here? You didn't look like it!" -- I can't tell if that's a compliment) since I dropped her off at like 10:00pm as opposed to the agreed upon 8:30pm, but they seemed alright with it once I explained what happened. The run itself probably took an epic 4 hours or so (I didn't continue timing it after I got to Madeleine's).

I'm never doing that again. Time for some tempo runs.