It was cold this morning, and I'd forgotten my sweat pants, so I was wearing my pjs over my shorts. There were only about a hundred people milling around, staring at their breath. Mom continued to be amazed at the smallness of the crowd when a nice emcee gave us some information on last minute course changes. I was relieved to discover that there would be volunteers at every turn along the route so we probably wouldn't get lost and die in the military cemetery.

We were all herded like obedient sheep to the start, and I sadly removed my sweatshirt and pjs. It really was cold. "Go" the nice emcee yelled. No gun. No countdown. This really was a small run. We followed along the road, and were slightly weirded out when the aid car was right behind us for the first mile. "Mom, this is awkward. That person back there might be staring at my butt for the next five hours." But we pulled away from the slowest people, and so the aid car fell back and whoever was in it didn't stare at me.

The first two miles were hard. I couldn't breathe, there was stuff crawling up my throat and down my lungs. My legs were numb and cold and my hands hurt. After that, we settled into a rhythym, for the first thirteen miles. We floated down the hills, laughed and passed people, then floated up them and laughed as people passed us. A nice older gent from Tallahassee ran with us - we passed him on the downhills, he passed us on the uphills. He wore a green shirt, so I called him the green goblin.

The trees were all changing and we passed beautiful houses, ran along ridges, down hills into the valley, crossed the river, and ran through some more forests. Crisp air, blue sky – I appreciated seeing a pretty part of Spokane. The part I live in is a strip mall.

The local high schools manned the water stations, and they dressed in costumes and played music and dropped Gatorade into my hands, so I could spill it all down my front. My yellow shirt has red, orange and blue Gatorade spots on it, now.

By mile fifteen, my legs were tired and I didn’t like going up the hills anymore. I didn’t even particularly like the flat parts. I’d watch anxiously for the next mile marker, and sometimes curse when they didn’t come fast enough.

At mile eighteen, I thought that eight miles left wasn’t so far. But I was tired, and trying to keep up our pace was hard. Hills, hills, hills. Ick. At mile twenty-two there was an awful hill that we decided not to run. Doomsday hill is a good name for it. At mile twenty four, I didn’t think I could finish. At mile twenty five, all I wanted to do was walk. At mile twenty six, the finish line was in sight and I managed to get all the way there.

26.2 miles is a long ways.