travel-blogue: an athlete's advent calendar

long distance is extremely challenging and can be utterly demoralizing, whether it's sitting in a trans-atlantic economy class seat for 7 hours, squeezing that extra point two out of your lactic flooded legs at mile 26, or attempting to maintain relationships (this goes for the people you get to see naked and/or the ones you don't). of course i would rather tolerate burning muscle groups and organ systems, than a scorching perineum (and it's surrounding neighbours) for the 10 plus hour childbirth marathon.

i have been virtually marathon training. my buddy and i share the same time zone, but not the same longitude. we are following identical schedules, with phone calls before (long weekend runs) and at powerade stops halfway through, to compare notes on how many honks we've had, how sucky it feels, and "share" a sports bean or two.

as a female, the obvious co-dependendent/i-can't-let-someone-else-down chromosome means that accountability to another person is the biggest motivator to maintaining any discipline. weekly packages have been keeping our respective postmen burdened with all manner of random running related retail. week 1 represents the importance of balancing excretions "before", so that there are minimal secretions "during".

week 2 addressed the need for adequate fuel, and as was noted in the accompanying card, "a l'il reminder of [your] other home".

week 3 provided pre/mid/post refueling, as well as inspirational reading for the daily bowel down-time.

week 4 was a tribute to the apres run relaxation, meditation and dissociation process.

and because "it gets cold in maine"; a little extra support for the digits, from a locally owned running store (owned by a british expat who settled in the 'ville).