Despite what you are about to read, that 20-miler went absurdly well.

"Eat right," they said. "Get plently of sleep," they said. "Don't go out and drink too much," they said.

Soooo I ate like a beast yesterday. Seriously. I ate a child's size bowl of cereal, a muffin and a bagel with olive cream cheese in the span of 5 hours. Then I had what would've been a healthy meal of vegetables and barley were it not for the absurd amount of oil and sour cream that accompanied it. Followed by a cookie. Then I went to a bar with an old coworker.

It was only two beers, but running has made me a huge wuss and I just don't go out and drink pints like I used to. Sure, I can enjoy a glass of wine or a beer with dinner a few nights a week. But the alcohol by volume is negligible compared to what I consumed at Earl's Beer & Cheese. Which is, by the way, is as AWESOME as its name implies. So we had beer, and cheese- I'm sorry, beer cheese -with oily garlic toast. And then another beer.

But I couldn't consider that dinner! So even though I was nowhere near drunk (but obviously not thinking clearly either) I decided to go home and immediately cook and eat a huge bowl of ravioli. Followed by a couple of chocolate covered pretzels and a few dozen Swedish Fish, which have become a new obsession of mine. (Thank you Runner's World for alerting me to the fact that they make great race nutrition and complete a balanced carbo-loading dinner menu.)

This is actually what your tiny, random running shirt pockets are for.

Also, I ate all of this while watching an Adam Sandler movie, which is just not healthy for anyone at any time.

(I did actually go to bed by 11:00pm. I think.)

Fast forward to the beep-beep-beep of my alarm clock. I was not hungry, which was already a bad sign since the 6.5 hour-old smorgasbord was not going to fuel me well enough. My stomach was doing cartwheels. The beer plus the anxiety of the 20-miler ahead equaled at least five trips to the bathroom. I forced down a piece of toast with jam, collected my sundry Powerbar gels and headed to Columbus Circle. Waaahhhhh!

But then the sun was shining! The wind was blowing! My running buddies were huddling for warmth!  The coach we love was leading our group! This was going to be an excellent day. I knew that at least the first 13 miles would be good—that's only a half-marathon, which I killed the week before (PR baby!)—and hoped the easy feeling would carry over into the rest of the run. It felt like we were running backwards when the wind gusts were against us, but I'll take a strong breeze over humidity any day. My physical therapist told me to do 17mi, but that if I was feeling good to go for the 20. So I did! By the time we got to the end I felt like I had at least 6 more miles in me. Maybe even ten! AND my shinjury did not bother me at all. Runderful :)

Doing everything wrong never felt so right.

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