Monday, September 15, 2014

Second star to the right...

...and straight on til morning! For those of you that don't get it (surely everyone does!) those are the directions to Never Never Land. I think of that all the time when I'm running. It won't really make sense to other people, but that's ok. The first time I ever made a reference to that was during FlatRock 101k. I was telling Jason we had to go this direction, then take a turn, run down the road, turn again, and we were almost to the turnaround. The way I described it just made the directions to Never Never Land pop into my head. I said that. He had no idea what I was talking about. I explained but he just looked at me like I was nuts. Then this summer I did the same thing to Deanna. Often on our runs I'll say something like "we will walk up that hill, then run the flat until we get to so and so point, walk the next hill, then turn towards home." I just always think of the directions that Peter Pan gave Wendy when I do that.

Right now, for me, Never Never Land is the finish line at Pumpkin Holler. Well, maybe the whole race is. It's something that I can't really imagine. I've been at other races where people run 100 miles. I've paced, I've seen the finishers. I even paced in this race last year. It still all seems like this magical, mystical place that I don't really understand. I think I know what will happen there and I definitely know what I want to have happen there. It's really just a great big unkown to me. I've followed my training plan, so I guess I have the directions down. I just need to keep following them and I'll get there, right?

Everyone knows Tick-Tock the crocodile in Peter Pan, right? He swallowed the alarm clock and you can hear it ticking when he's around. Captain Hook always freaks out when he hears the clock ticking. Well, I'm going to think of Tick-Tock and that clock that is ticking down the whole race. See, I think I can run 100 miles. Actually, I know I can. I just don't know if I can do it in 30 hours. My biggest fear is being pulled from the race due to time limits. I also worry that I'll go out entirely too fast because I'm worried about the clock and I'll end up blowing up and not being able to finish. I suppose if I were to continue this comparison, that would make me Captain Hook? Hmmmm. I think that makes Jason, my final pacer, Tinker Bell? I like it! I wonder if I can get him to wear fairy wings?

I guess I'm all out of Peter Pan references. I mean, just how closely can one compare Peter Pan to running 100 miles? I think it's probably weird that a silly quote from this movie pops into my head on a lot of runs. It's one of the things that makes me unique I guess! This post really has absolutely no point and is really not that exciting. It's just something that I keep thinking about, so I thought I'd share it with all of you. The closer I get to race day the more scared I am. 32 days!! As of today I'm officially registered! I put that off for quite a while, because now that I'm registered I suppose I have to do it.

I'll see if I can't come up with a much better post in the next few days. In the meantime, Happy Running!

~Mel

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