But I still have 94 monkeys to go

My fourth half-marathon began much like my third — inauspiciously. I was forcing myself to eat after a terrible night of sleep (NOLA neighbors decide to rage from 3:30-5AM? awesome), dry-heaving nervous at the prospect of towing the line again. It felt like an effort to just point my feet in the correct direction. Was I really going to do this again???

In one of those races, I effectively quit at Mile 6 and spent the next 7.1 miles hating myself and everything. In the other, I forged ahead, hit mile 10 with a smile and the finish line proud.

It would be simplistic to say the difference was that I just decidedNew Orleans wasn’t going to be like the last time (Philadelphia), and then I went out and made sure that it wasn’t. So let’s just say I learned a lesson about mental strength and the importance of determination, in the good, real-smile-in-the-postrace-pictures way.

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• 60% “No, we don’t take reservations and I’m not sure why you would want one. Let me explain why we don’t take reservations in a super condescending manner and an overly lengthy excuse.”
• 35% “Yeah, we’re all booked for the race and we’ve been booked for a long time… we’re going to be busy… good luck finding your carbs!”
• 5% “Aw, you poor Northerner, I think we can help you out.” SUCCESS! So if you want to have dinner with me on March 3, you should message or email me (94monkeys at gmail) me so I can send you the details.

So, an announcement instead! If you are going to be in New Orleans for Rock’n’Roll in a few weeks (eek/yay), I am planning a pre-race dinner on Saturday night. If you want to come, you can comment on the NOLA Facebook page (where there is a lively discussion already going about pancakes), or message me, or reply to this post, or email me… or carrier pigeon… but let me know so I can make a reservation. I suspect a lot of local restaurants serving carbohydrate-based dishes will be busy that night.

Also… how’ve you been?