hyperthermia

I'm a little concerned about Nevada and the 'Running with the Devil' 50 miler than I have scheduled. I went to New Jersey this weekend and ran the New Jersey Marathon. It was reminiscent of what I would consider torture. I hung out with a friend and watched "John Tucker must die" or something at her house, it was funny (mindless funny). Then I drove up toward New Jersey and slept at a rest stop in Maryland a few miles from the Boarder of Delaware. Since I am holding off on the Delaware Marathon and have no Delaware jumping pics, I stopped off at Delaware Park (I thought it would be a park, like a garden-ish type park with a walking path/playground, but it turned out it was a race track and casino... ha ha). I took some pictures by the signs and met a guy who was on his daily walk who helped me to take some jumping Delaware pictures at the track.

Afterward I headed out to the hotel where I would pick up my stuff for the expo. Of course I'm brilliant and forgot to print out the booklet with the directions and information for runners... So I looked up hotels in Long Branch, New Jersey on Tommy's (my GPS) points of interest. I knew it had the word 'Ocean' in the title, so that narrowed it down to two choices. I called the first hotel on the list. It wasn't the right one, it must be the second right? I called them and it turned out it was the location of the expo and across from the starting line. I chose that as my destination. I was planning on stopping at White Castle (as in Harold and Kumar go to White Castle) but I was too tired and wanted to get my stuff.


I hit the expo and picked up all the samples they had and bought a few sports bras and shirts with sweet logos. I even 'designed' my own shirt from the logos they had. It's going to be great. I think it's hilarious. I got a shirt that says "will run for ice cream" aka the story of my life and another that says "it's not fat, it's fuel"... plus the one I designed. I usually don't buy anything, but I really liked the material and the sayings on these shirts so I got sucked in! ha ha.

After I left the expo I wandered around on the beach and sat out on the rocks chatting/catching up with a few friends. I even signed up for unlimited text messages! Big deal for me since I haven't had them since 2007 and am not the hugest fan. Honestly I got them because of a certain someone... but I'm also excited to get A's scores every day sent to my phone.

I read the small book I got from visiting Park West Church in Knoxville, Tennessee by Lucado. I love Lucado's writing, he's so frank and he just makes so much sense!

I went to the 50 States Club meeting and met some people who are just as crazy as myself. :) I was glad I am really not the only one. I'm going to join and get a 'certified' 50 States finish when I am closer to being done. I added up how many states I will complete this year... and I've already done 4 and I will get 4 more before the year is through with just the runs I've already signed up for, not to mention I want to do Arizona and Ohio this year...

Afterward I ate some food and read some more and chilled in Lazarus before prepping for the next morning and falling asleep in the back of Laz.

The run began at 9AM... I thought it was pretty late, but people were arriving before 7AM. I was woken up by the sound of car doors slamming on either side of me. I decided I should get up when it hit 7:39AM and changed and headed toward the hotel to brush my teeth, wash my face, and charge my cell phone... ha ha.

Others were stretching out and were serious about this run... I waltzed in with my toothbrush and was just out to complete another state as a part of my quest to finish the 50 states.

I talked with some fellow runners, dropped my stuff off at Lazarus, put on tons of sunscreen (though apparently not enough because my neck and cheeks were still burnt after the 5 hours in the sun). I headed toward the starting line and there was a sea of people. It was kind of ridiculous. The race started... the gun fired... and then again the gun fired. I didn't actually cross the line until 10 minutes after the original start. It was already 85 degrees and 85% humidity when we started. The sun peeked out through the clouds. It was going to be a hot day.

The loop was unnerving because you could see the markers for the second loop... so at mile 2 we saw mile 14 0.1 miles before we hit mile 2. It was frustrating... I felt so annoyed by mile 9 that I wanted to hide the flags and pull them out later for the second loop. (I'm not a big fan of loop marathons or when you see the other people who are ahead/behind you while you're running, it's disheartening.) I met a guy named Don who was 54 years old and didn't run at all other than the half marathon each year. He said he was out of shape, but he didn't look that terrible for a man of his age and his claims of not exercising. Later he said he was going to do something he'd never done before in his life... walk. I trudged on along ahead and eventually found a woman named Julie to run with. She was 46 and a health and P.E. teacher with two kids. I want to look like her after I have kids when I'm 46. She was awesome. I pushed her through the last 3 miles of the half and was excited to she her finish her first half marathon. :) (That's the only cool thing about a straight up double loop, I could literally see her finishing her run as I passed under the sign that pointed to the "loop 2" for the marathon.)

I continued to slop along (my heels had both been bleeding for at least 5 miles at this point and were quite tender and painful). I stopped by the port-a-potties by mile 14 only to discover to my horror that it was that time of month... no wonder my stomach had hurt, but not running cramping, the other kind. I was so annoyed and of course no one running had anything. I was tempted to ask someone who was sitting on their lawn cheering us on but I figured I might as well just get to the finish so off I went. I ran with a guy named Sean who lived in Texas but worked in Northern Jersey for a company based in Southern California. He got paid to travel around. I liked the sound of that. I definitely need to find a job like that. He was walking/running so I eventually ran on ahead (slowly mind you) and eventually was delirious by mile 22. I thought I was going to die. My head hurt, my body hurt and I wasn't sure what was keeping my legs moving but I had to chant to motivate myself and tried my best to encourage those around me despite the overwhelming heat.

At one point (around mile 24) I was almost crying from the heat and pain of it all. I hit mile 25 where we ran along the boardwalk and I knew I was going to finish under 5 hours. I kept on moving and even picked up the pace in the shoot passing the guy I had set my sights on around mile 23 and dominated the girl who had passed me at mile 22 (I actually passed her at mile 24.5 when she started walking and I continued on toward the finish). When I crossed the line, it was like a release of tension and my head hurt, my body hurt and I semi collapsed. It's a good thing they have medical personnel to help, they put me in a wheelchair and wheeled me over to the medical tent. I didn't quite pass out but I was hyperventilating and it turned out my body temperature was a toasty 103 degrees. They packed my body in ice (armpits, groin, under my knees, neck, in my shirt, etc) and it took a good 20 minutes to get my temperature down to 102.1. I couldn't talk because my tongue was malfunctioning and I called Benedetti to tell her I'd be slower than I had anticipated. My entire body was tingling more than I had ever tingled in my life. I tried to slow down my breathing as they instructed but it was difficult. I was glad I had texts at that point and took a picture of my medal and bib number still pinned to my stomach and sent it off to some friends to notify them of my 13th state finish. 37 to go. After another hour and then some (it took over 90 minutes to get my temperature back down to normal ~96 degrees), I eventually was freezing cold because my clothes were soaked in water from all of the ice melting (they had to change packs of ice on me multiple times) and the breeze coming from the nearby ocean. I left AMA (against medical advice) because I was really hungry and wanted to get back on the road to Princeton to visit Benedetti, Andy and Jeff.

I drove over and we watched Drumline, which I love. A good quote from the movie: "we don't date in the South, we have boyfriends." We got pizza from Papa John's and chilled out. Andy came by and visited after he got back from church in Philadelphia and Jeff stopped by to stay hello after he was done with his prior obligations. I was just glad to see everyone since I was in New Jersey and wasn't planning on going back. I finally left around 10PM and headed south. I made it to Maryland before I had to pull over and take a nap. I was very out of it and quite delirious at this point. I felt so dehydrated I couldn't think. I took an hour and a half nap, woke up and continued on my way (of course after trying to figure out how to get to the freeway, rolling over a curb because I was still out of it, I finally made it back to 95S). I ended up cranking up the tunes and bustin' a move to stay awake till I got back to Midlothian. I arrived around 6AM, took a 2 hour nap and got up and went to work.

I need to get more sleep. Last night I tried to go to bed at 10PM and I couldn't fall asleep until after midnight even after taking half a Benadryl (usually I'm knocked out from Benadryl).

- run for life