Thoughts on Yesteryear (SPOILERS!!!)

 So I haven't posted on this blog for almost a year, but I just finished Yesteryear, and wow! I started it on Saturday night and finished it Tuesday morning before work.  This may be the first time ever in life that I have woken up, instantly reached for the book I was reading, and kept making deals with myself like, "You need to start getting ready for work at 6:45.  Well, no, you don't have that much left, 7:00 is fine.  Oh, crap, it's 7:15," and so on until I was done.

Yesteryear tells the story of Natalie Heller Mills, a tradwife influencer. We learn almost immediately that her life is not what she presents on Instagram; she has two nannies, a producer, and several farmhands that are unseen on camera.  Then, one day, she wakes up in 1855; she seems to be living in the same house, but without any electricity, indoor plumbing, modern appliances, etc. Other things are off, as well; back in her previous life, she had five children named Clementine, Stetson, Samuel, Jessa, and Junebug, and a sixth on the way.  In 1855, her children are named Mary, Abel, Noah, and Maeve.  As she tries to figure out how she got here and what is going on, the book flashes back to her previous life to explain how she got to her "successful tradwife" status and where things all went wrong.  In that life, she grew up in a conservative Christian household; went to Harvard on scholarship; met and married Caleb, the wealthy son of a politician; began having children; and decided to, with the financial help of her father-in-law, buy the property that she calls Yesteryear Ranch.

One thing that I thought was incredibly brilliant about the book was that, because the whole thing is told from Natalie's perspective, it takes until about halfway through to realize how completely incompetent Natalie and Caleb are.  She realizes that Caleb is very dumb pretty soon into their marriage, but when she describes the early days of starting the ranch, she reveals pretty casually and carelessly that their first dairy cow and flock of chickens die almost immediately.  "Oh," I thought in surprise.  "They have absolutely no idea what they're doing." Up until this point, I knew they had more help at the ranch than they let on, but I didn't think their whole life was a complete sham.

BIG TIME SPOILERS BELOW!!!!!

It's at this point that I don't think I can talk about this book anymore without giving away the plot twist, so stop reading if you don't want spoilers.  We eventually find out that the 1855 sections are not actually taking place in 1855, and that Natalie suffered a complete mental breakdown after her producer, Shannon, exposed her as a fraud.  At that point, she and Caleb decided they would strip their home of all modern amenities and live the "traditional" lifestyle for real.  Eventually, Clementine (by then a teenager) decided to help Stetson, Samuel, Jessa, and Junebug escape and live with their grandmother.  Mary was the baby that Natalie was pregnant with at the time she was exposed as a fraud; she and Caleb went on to have Abel, Noah, and Maeve.  Clementine eventually turns back up to rescue the remaining children.  

I have heard that a lot of people really did not like this twist.  I think it actually made a lot of sense.  I kind of figured all along that they weren't really in 1855, because Natalie still had all of her old memories of her previous life, and there was nothing to suggest time travel or any other sort of sci-fi/fantasy element.  My theory the whole time was that Caleb and her politician father-in-law were setting her up/making her think that she was crazy somehow/for some reason.  I didn't think she actually *was* crazy, but looking back, there were signs that she was headed that way and that it wasn't *that* farfetched for her to go down this path.  There is discussion of how, when she and Caleb bought Yesteryear, they renovated it to make it look more rustic and to put all modern appliances out of view even though it had just recently been updated.  Her mother flat-out tells her that she doesn't understand why she would do this and that this worries her.  

There are other details that indicate that she is slipping mentally; we learn at one point that she routinely doesn't feed her children dinner until late at night because she is trying too hard to make perfect, elaborate, Instagram-worthy meals.  At another point, a fan realizes that Natalie has left her baby in the car while she grocery shopped.  At yet another point, Natalie realizes that she has said something that she thought was all in her head out loud, and we realize that maybe she has been doing that a lot.  There is also the issue that Caleb is very easily influenced; he falls under the spell of the "manosphere," then at another point believes he is in love with their producer, Shannon, and says that he wants to move to New York with her.  It's not hard to believe that he would go along with Natalie's plan to become homesteaders for real.  My only real issue is that I think there would have been more signs that they were living in contemporary times.  At one point, 1855 Natalie finds a piece of a microphone; I think there would have been other things like that.  Once all of their employees were no longer helping, I just don't think she and Caleb would have done that competent of a job of stripping their home of its modern amenities.  I would have liked to see Natalie slowly noticing more details that tipped her off to what was really going on.

And, once the twist is revealed, things just get more disturbing the more that you think about them.  The day after I read it, I thought, "they really just kept having more kids and neglecting them.  Clementine really had to come back and rescue a whole second set of kids." It is also mentioned that every time a dairy cow would die, they would get another and give it the same name, Sassafrass, so there was also just a total disregard for animals.  So many things that were just so messed up.

My only other issue was that, because the entire story is from Natalie's perspective, we really only see the reality of things when she inadvertently reveals something that she doesn't realize is damning or when another character overtly calls her out on something.  Because of that, some details are unclear.  For example, prior to Shannon exposing Natalie as a fraud, Natalie assaults Shannon.  The way that Shannon describes it in a television interview is different from the way that Natalie describes and seems to remember it.  I was inclined to believe Shannon, but I listened to one podcast where the hosts seemed to think Shannon was lying and another that just felt it was unclear what happened.  I think those moments of unclarity were just the way they had to be because of how the story was told, but I still wanted to know more.

As a whole, though, I really liked it. So much to talk about, and so much I haven't even touched on here.  I'll be thinking about it for a long time.

Des Moines Marathon race recap

 So, as some of you remember, the 2024 Des Moines Marathon did not go well.  It got hot, I felt sick to my stomach and couldn't take in any nutrition after mile sixteen, I went out too fast, etc., etc. I signed up for the 2025 race at the end of last year, literally referring to it as The Redemption, not to be dramatic or anything.  I ran the Fargo Marathon at the end of May and got some confidence back, running my second fastest time ever at 4:35:01. I started training for Des Moines in mid-June.

The fall racing season leading up to Des Moines included the Harvest Moon Hustle 10K in Elmwood, NE; the Monument Half-Marathon in Scottsbluff/Gering, NE; and Market to Market from Omaha to Lincoln.  My times/paces at all of them were pretty good, but not spectacular.  Also, because of other races, I wound up doing my longest run of twenty miles five weeks out from Des Moines, which wasn't ideal.  Any time anyone would ask me how I felt about Des Moines, I would preface with, "Well, I started my taper a little early, but..." My longest run is typically two-four weeks out.  I wasn't sure how that would go.

I got to the expo late Saturday afternoon. Chelsea and Brock were working the Market to Market booth, and within half an hour of getting there I'd seen like six other friends who were signed up for the half, so that was awesome.  The temperatures at the start were actually looking pretty chilly at that point and I had packed short sleeves and capris, so I decided to buy some arm sleeves at the expo. Sunday morning at the race I lined up with the 4:35 pacer and figured I would speed up if I could, hoping I could at least beat my second-best time from Fargo.  The following things then happened:

1) I got ahead of the 4:35 pace group going up a hill during the second mile and decided to just roll with it.  A few times during the first ten miles I knew I was going way too fast, like there were a couple of miles in the 9:30s, but I just decided to do what felt good and try not to think about it too much.  This strategy worked pretty well; I slowed down a little as I went, but never really "bonked"; the first ten miles were mostly in the 9-10 minute range, the second ten were in the 10-11 range, and the last six were mostly in the 11-11:30 range.  Ideally, I would want to pace a little more evenly, but I didn't have any truly terrible miles like I did at Des Moines last year, or Chicago in 2021 or Monument in 2023, so I was happy about that.

2) I crossed paths with Brock, Nick, and Mia, who were all running the half, at around mile three, I think.

3) Also at around mile three, I decided I was ready to ditch my arm sleeves.  This turned out to be a Whole Deal since I had put both my watch and my pace bracelet on over them.  Long story short, the pace bracelet had to be ripped off and got thrown in the trash at the next opportunity, and though I tucked the arm sleeves into my flip belt, I noticed at some point later that one was missing.  I'm not allowed to buy arm sleeves ever again.

4) For nutrition, I alternated between Honey Stinger chews and mini Honey Stinger waffles every four miles through mile sixteen.  Then, not long before I was supposed to have more chews at mile twenty, there was an aid station with pickles, so I had a hunk of one of those.  Then there was an aid station sponsored by the Iowa Pork Producers offering strips of bacon, so I had a bite of bacon.  Oh, also, at some point, someone along the course offered me a Jolly Rancher, which I enjoyed because it kept my mouth from getting dry for awhile.

5) The Omaha folks who had run the half were there to cheer me on at the finish.  Finish time was 4:32:05, almost three minutes faster than Fargo in May and just one minute and eleven seconds shy of my 4:30:54 PR.  So, cautiously optimistic that I may be able to PR again one day.

Not sure if there are any huge takeaways to be had, except just try not to overthink things too much, whether in training or on race day.  Both this and Fargo have been confidence-building.  I have one more race left in 2025 with the Good Life Halfsy.  In 2026, I'm looking forward to Grandma's Marathon, and looking into possibilities for fall marathons.

Fargo Marathon Race Recap

 I don't know if blogging is really a thing anymore, but I prefer this format for race recaps, so here goes.

I signed up for the Fargo Marathon somewhat on a whim last Labor Day weekend.  An ad came across Facebook, I needed a spring/summer goal race, and after doing some light research, I discovered that Fargo was less than a six-hour drive away and that hotels weren't very expensive.  I figured if I could get someone to go with me, great, but if not, oh well. 

As some of you know, I ran the Des Moines Marathon last fall and it went terrible.  I went out way too fast, fell back from the pace group I never should have been trying to keep up with in the first place at like mile nine, it got hot, I felt sick to my stomach and couldn't get down any nutrition after mile sixteen, and so on, and so on.  At one point during the later miles, I thought to myself, "Maybe I will be done with marathons.  This sucks."  Then I almost immediately thought, "Well, I already signed up for Fargo.  I'll still do that." Then before the new year I'd already signed up to do Des Moines again.  The point is, even though as recently as this past spring I told like five-ten people that I was probably going to retire from the marathon distance soon, if I ever say that to you, just ask me which ones I'm already signed up for.

My spring race season made me feel cautiously optimistic.  Last year's half-marathons both sucked (are you seeing a pattern from last year?), with the Lincoln Half happening with apparently too little recovery from the Zion 50K and the Rock Island Trail Half happening on a day that was hotter than the surface of the sun.  I set a cautious "I guess maybe under 2:05?" goal for Lincoln this year, and was happy to make it in 2:03:59.  I wound up running most of that race with my friend Anna without really having planned that in advance, and I was surprised at how much it helped keep me out of my own head.  I can get very discouraged if I get off pace and go kind of crazy trying to do math in my head ("If you run the rest of it at such-and-such pace, you can still make it in under..."), and I found I wasn't doing that and was actually having fun racing for the first time in awhile.  I was slapping people's "Tap here to power up!" signs.  Little kids would hold out their hands to give people five, and I would do it.  I finished the race happy.

As the Fargo race date approached, it started to look like temperatures would not be ideal.  The night before, watching TV in my hotel, the local weather woman cautioned that there was an air quality alert because of fires up in Canada.  "Oh, GREAT!," I probably said aloud to no one.  Regardless, I decided to stick with my original "start with the 4:35 pace group and see how it goes" plan.  My marathon PR is just under 4:31, and it seemed unlikely to be a PR day, but I figured that starting with the 4:35 group would at least keep me from going out too fast and, if I could keep up with them the whole way, get me my second-best time ever.  

Noteworthy things about the course and race, in no particular order:

1) I stuck with the pace group pretty much the whole time, and like when I ran the Lincoln Half with Anna, it kept me out of my head.  The pacers would discuss things among themselves like, "We've been going a little fast, so we need to slow down to XYZ pace," and it was really nice to just let them figure it out and go along for the ride.  They also kept it fun and gave good advice.  One woman wondered aloud at one point if she should go on ahead and they said, "Don't speed up to any pace you can't sustain the rest of the race," and I decided that was good advice, since I normally tend to bonk somewhere between miles sixteen and twenty.  There was a little going back and forth with the group at the end, but I mostly stuck with them and finished pretty much right on at 4:35:01. 

2) One of the pacers kept saying that the first half of a marathon is actually twenty miles and the last half is 6.2, so with that in mind, at mile twenty, he led us in the chorus to "Livin' on a Prayer" (Ohhhh, we're halfway there..."). In general, let me just say how much good music selections help, especially in the last miles of a marathon.  I still think back fondly on Grandma's Marathon 2022, when I heard "All I Do is Win" at mile twenty-four and just went, "Okay," and took off.  In the last miles of this one, I got perked up at mile twenty-three or twenty-four by "Party in the USA," then in the last mile by a live band playing "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" with slightly adjusted lyrics ("You have run five hundred miles...") followed by "Tubthumping" ("I get knocked down, but I get up again, you're never gonna keep me down..."). Huge pick-me-ups.

3) I stayed on top of nutrition for once in my life and got down every single thing I brought with me.

4) Best race sign went to "Leo Would Stop at 25."

5) The people of Fargo really came out for the race.  The course went through a lot of residential neighborhoods, and a lot of people were out on their lawns cheering.

6) I guess you know you're up north when you notice how many hockey nets there are in people's yards.

7) Packet pick-up the day before was at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, and there were signs all over that said, "Home of the Cobbers" or whatever.  "What the heck is a Cobber?" I wondered.  It turns out it's this mean little corn man who showed up when we ran through the Concordia College campus:

I love me a random-ass mascot.  I'm not one to stop to take pictures along the race course, but I wish I had gotten one with that guy.

8) There were a lot of turns on the course and lots of places where you crossed paths with runners who were at a different place on the course.  This was mostly fine, but there was one place where you had to run single file because you were on a narrow path with people coming from the other direction.  That part sucked.  They had plenty of volunteers directing people and did their best, but it still was frustrating and felt unsafe.  That was my only real complaint.

With eight marathons under my belt, the marathon distance still continues to humble me.  You have to be consistent in your training and realistic in your pacing, and even then, bad weather and/or a challenging course can throw all your time goals out the window.  I was really happy with my time this race, and/but am very aware of all of the things that had to come together for that to happen. Forever grateful to the Omaha run crew peeps who will jump in for a loop or three around Cunningham or Zorinsky and/or get me out on gravel roads, and to Carrie N., who listened to all of this on the phone on my drive home 😂. Special shoutout this time to the Beast Pacing team.

Next up: Cornfield Cornfield 10K

Fall goal race: Des Moines Marathon II: The Redemption

 

Des Moines Marathon race recap

I posted on Facebook a couple of weeks ago that my A goal was sub-4:30:54, for a PR; B goal was sub-4:56:32, so it was at least not my worst; and C goal was to finish in one piece.  Apparently, my C goal was actually my D goal, because when things started going south, all I could think was, "I hope I at least finish in under five hours."  I did, at 4:57:30.

I've tried to write this recap a few different times, trying a "play by play" approach and a flippant "it is what it is/each race is just different" approach.  Basically, the end result came down to the following:

1) It got hot.

2) I started feeling nauseated at around mile sixteen.  I had been taking Honey Stinger chews every four miles prior to that (which is pretty typical for me) and had also accepted a Twizzler from someone on the course at one point, but after that, I was afraid I would throw up if I had anything other than water.

3) I made some poor pacing decisions.  There was a 4:20 pace group and a 4:35 pace group, but no 4:30.  In retrospect, when I saw the forecast and realized how hot it was likely to get, I should have just started with the 4:35 group and not worried about trying to get a PR.  In reality, I went out with the 4:20 group and tried to see how long I could hang, which wound up being about ten miles.  I still kept up a fairly respectable pace until about mile twenty, at which point it became "just get through it" territory.

Obviously, I wanted a different/better result, but I'm still proud of the fact that I can feel as bad as I did during that race and still finish in under five hours.  I also felt good about this training cycle; I felt prepared going in.  Also, I love Des Moines in general and thought the expo and after party were both great.  Shoutout to Ross, Joe, and Jenn for cheering me on after they finished the half.

Now, it's time to recover and just keep a base up for a couple of months.  I'm running the Fargo Marathon at the end of May 2025, so training for that will begin in January. Onward and upward!

Zion Ultras 50K

 Way back in November, the gang started making plans to do the Zion Ultras in Utah.  We had people at the 100K, 50K, and half-marathon distances.  We made all the travel plans and started training.  At the time, it seemed so far off; when the weekend finally arrived, it seemed almost unreal.

The five of us who were signed up for the 50K, Nate, Tim, Myung, Mikki, and I, lined up at the start on Sunday morning.  Karri had finished the 100K in the night with Carrie pacing her the last twenty miles, and Amber, Theresa, and Josh were set to do the half-marathon an hour after us.  With Amber, Theresa, and Josh cheering us on, we took off:

The first six miles were on dirt roads that we'd done a shakeout on a couple of days prior.  Myung, Mikki, and I pretty much stuck together during this portion, and we were feeling pretty good.  After the first aid station, we headed into Gooseberry Mesa still together.  Here the terrain became very rocky and technical, which I tend to be more cautious on, so I fell back a bit.

The trail was marked by white dots and pink flags, and sometimes it was hard to tell where you were going.  For example, at one point, I saw a pink flag on a rock and took it to mean that you were supposed to go around the base of the rock, but when I started doing so, there was no trail there.  Someone told me I was supposed to go OVER the rock. Okay then! The following things happened in no particular order:

1) I started up a hill that was an out-and-back and crossed paths, first, with a woman who was breathing quickly, almost like she was hyperventilating.  Someone asked her if she was okay, and she said yes.  Then I crossed paths with Myung, who said something like, "It's scary up there, Molly."  It was, in fact, very high with a steep drop.  A lot of people were stopping to take pictures, but I didn't even want to mess with my phone, so I headed back down.

2) At a couple of points, I had to use my hands to help myself over rocks, and at one point my knees were down on a rock, too.  I had debated the "shorts vs. capris" question the night before, and I was glad that I had chosen capris so that my bare knees weren't down on the rock.

3) I came upon a permanent trail marker that said something like, "Difficulty level: Extreme," and a guy running near me said something like, "As opposed to what we've been doing already, which has been a walk in the park?"

4) A couple running together asked me what mileage I had on my watch.  I said 13.8.  They said they had the same, and asked if I'd seen an aid station; they said there was supposed to be one at (I think) 12.7.  Then I ran into another girl who said that she was pretty sure there wasn't another aid station until mile 17-point-something.  It turned out it was somewhere between 14 and 15.  I used the port-a-potty, filled my water bottles, grabbed part of a turkey sandwich, and headed back out.

I continued on Gooseberry Mesa and had thoughts like, "Is the whole race going to be like this?," and "Holy crap, how long am I going to be out here?" The terrain made for slow moving.  Then I hit another aid station that took you back out to the dirt road. There, I could finally get moving at a decent pace, and I started picking people off again (A LOT of people passed me on the mesa). I wondered how far ahead Myung and Mikki were.  There was a crossroads where you turned left, and that's where Josh, Theresa, Amber, Karri, and everyone (those who had done other distances or were there to pace or watch) were cheering.  Amber ran out to me with a bag of food and asked what I needed.  I said I was good and took the left turn.  I continued to pick people off and started crossing paths on an out-and-back with people who were heading to the finish, including Nate.

I headed into Grafton Mesa.  At the aid station there, a volunteer told me that I would do a 5-point-something-mile-loop, come back, and then head back on the dirt toward the finish.  On the loop, I crossed paths with Mikki, who was somehow behind me now (she later said I had passed her at the aid station going in and hadn't seen her).  Also on the loop, things got technical again.  I had to use my hands a couple more times to pull myself up.  Also, at one point, some sort of spiky plant got caught on my capris, I cried out, and the dude behind me pulled whatever it was out for me.  There was a HUGE hill at one point, and I said aloud, "You have got to be kidding me."  Whatever mileage the volunteer had said it was, my watch had it at more than that, and as my water dwindled, I started thinking things like, "How much further?" and "I want to be done with this."

Finally I made it back to the aid station. I caught a glimpse of Myung just leaving, but I badly needed to fill my water bottles, so I didn't try to catch up to her.  I headed back out to the road and started on the final dirt stretch to the finish.  The course took us again past the crossroads where you had turned to go towards Grafton Mesa, and where you headed towards the finish.  The gang was still there cheering and going crazy, which gave me a boost.  Also, there was a dude in a grim reaper costume stopping anyone who still had to go to Grafton Mesa; they had missed the cutoff and would be "reaped" from the course.  But for those of us who just had to go to the finish, he high fived us, so that was something, being high fived by the grim reaper.  I headed toward the finish.  Amber and Karri were there to cheer and take pictures.  Myung had finished about five minutes ahead of me, and Mikki finished about five minutes after, so we were all really close despite having separated.  We all took some group pictures and headed back to the Air B&B.

So, it was by far the most challenging course I've ever done and probably ever will do.  Though time goals went out the window pretty early on due to the terrain, and though there were times I was cursing the heavens, I, as a whole, felt good-- no injuries, no feelings of nausea, etc. Two days later, I am back in Omaha, still tired and sore, but as a whole feeling pretty good.  Though I at one point thought to myself, "a half-marathon would have been plenty on this terrain," I'm glad I did it.  As always, shout out to the awesome running crew from Omaha, who also kicked ass at their goals over the weekend. We have the best group ever.

thoughts on the Mean Girls movie musical

 So I've been out of high school for more than twenty-five years at this point, and sometimes I will watch a teen movie or show and think, "Were kids in high school that mean?  I don't remember them being that mean."  Then this person or that will come up in conversation and I will find myself saying, "No one was nice to them.  I know I definitely wasn't," or I'll think back to a time when a bunch of us got really carried away talking about someone behind their back and I'll realize, "I didn't even dislike that person.  I just let myself get caught up in it."  So the point is, no, high school kids are maybe not as overtly mean as they are on something like Glee or Cobra Kai, but I think the social dynamics are such that it sometimes seems better to join in, even on mean behavior, rather than be the one on the outside.

In Mean Girls, both the original 2004 version and the 2024 musical version, newcomer Cady Herron, who has been homeschooled and lived in Kenya prior to the beginning of the movie, learns that it's not only nearly impossible to stay above or outside of the high school social hierarchy, but that it's pretty fun to be at the top-- but that getting there isn't pretty, and your position there is always tenuous.  Almost immediately after starting at her first American high school, she catches the attention of both the outsiders, Janis and Damien, and the Plastics, the "cool girl" clique, led by the beautiful, rich, and mean Regina George.  At first, she doesn't see what's so bad about the Plastics, but then when she catches Regina kissing Aaron Samuels, her crush and Regina's ex, she agrees to Janis's plan to get revenge on Regina, who also wronged Janis in middle school.  Though she succeeds, she loses sight of who she is and hurts a lot of people in the process.

The original Mean Girls was iconic, with Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert, Amanda Seyfried, and Lizzy Caplan turning in memorable performances as Cady, Regina, Plastics Gretchen and Karen, and Janis, respectively.  Though they were a tough act to follow, it wasn't long into the movie that I thought to myself, "This actually makes a lot of sense as a musical."  The original movie had some funny, over the top elements that the musical format gets to play up, and the songs let you see into the heads of not only the main characters of Cady, Regina, and Janis, but secondary characters such as Gretchen and Karen.  Karen (played here by Avantika) gets a hilarious song about how fun it is to dress sexy on Halloween.  This version also incorporates contemporary social media effectively; the way teens communicate is different now than it was in 2004, so it's neat that they work that in.  The only real problem I see with this version is that while the actors playing Regina and Janis (Renee Rapp and Auli'i Cravalho) are GREAT, Cady (Angourie Rice) is just GOOD, meaning Regina and Janis really steal the show.   I'm not sure if that's even a problem; I just found myself thinking that I would have liked to see 2004 Linday Lohan in a musical version, since we know she can sing and did a great job with the character.  Regardless...it's fun.  If you like musicals, go see it.

Monument Marathon Race Recap

 As those of you who read this blog know, I ran the Monument Half-Marathon last year and decided to come back this year for the full.  Though I knew from the half that the course would be challenging and that I should manage my expectations when it came to time goals, as the days approached, I found myself printing a 4:30:00 pace bracelet off the Internet just in case. I had a 4:35:00 pace bracelet the day that I set my PR of 4:30:54 at Grandma's Marathon in 2022, and it helped to be able to just glance down and see where I was at in terms of time.  (Pace bracelets tell you not just what your pace per mile should be, but what time you should be at each mile, so you don't have to try to do math in your head in the middle of everything).  I figured the bracelet would just give me something to shoot for in terms of time, and if I didn't make it, fine, but at least I had a goal pace in mind.

On the Thursday before the race, I sent Carrie N. a Facebook message that said, "Now is the time pre-marathon where I start overanalyzing stats and having thoughts like, 'This race will be about the same temp as Grandma's, but it will be hillier.  But there will be no humidity.  But...'" This only got worse in the next couple of days.  I am prone to anxiety dreams, and the night before the race, I had one about work, of all things.  When I woke up, the first thing I thought was, "Oh! You weren't feeling well at Grandma's this year! You thought you were catching a cold!  You're feeling better today!"  I kept finding reasons to be optimistic.

My parents dropped me off at Five Rocks Ampitheatre on race morning to catch the shuttle to the Wildcat Hills.  It was really foggy, and as we approached our destination, the shuttle driver said something like, "Thank you for coming! I hope the fog lifts and you get to experience some of our natural beauty out here!"  When we got off the bus, volunteers were there to greet us with a table all set up with water and food.  They welcomed us and told us we could go inside, where we would find bathrooms and places to sit down.  In line for the restroom, I struck up a conversation with a woman wearing a Grandma's Marathon sweatshirt.  Then several of us went upstairs to an open room with chairs all around the perimeter.  Someone joked, "Are we the elites, or what?!" I saw another woman with an Indianapolis Monumental Marathon cap, and I went over to tell her I'd done that one, too.  "I used to live in Evansville!" I added.  She gave me a blank look at the mention of Evansville. It turned out that she was from California and trying to run a marathon in all fifty states; Nebraska was actually her last.  I realized that though it was a small race (I later learned that around eighty people had started the Full, with seventy-six finishing), a lot of people were from out of state.  Some were from neighboring states like Colorado and Wyoming, but I also talked to people from, or overheard people mention, Pennsylvania, New York, and Montana.  Some, like the woman from California, were working towards all fifty states and using this as their Nebraska race.

We went outside to line up.  The race benefits Western Nebraska Community College scholarships, and  members of the basketball team were lined up with pace signs to show us where to line up.  Someone jokingly said to one of them, "You're going to be pacing us, right?" The basketball player gave him a look of utter panic and horror.  The guy asking laughed, all, "You're like, 'I was just told I would be holding a sign."

We took off.  I'd been warned beforehand not to go too fast down the hill.  I did okay.  I was a little faster than goal pace, but not terribly so.  One lane of the four-lane road was closed for us runners.  The basketball players passed us in their cars, cheering.  For the first ten-eleven miles, there were a few runners that I went back and forth with consistently, including an older man who was run-walking.  I would pass him when he walked, and he would pass me when he ran.  My parents were at a few different stations cheering me on.  By the halfway point, I was a little off of my 4:30:00 goal pace, but not bad.

Though elevation started to gradually climb at mile twelve.  Miles fourteen-sixteen had the steepest elevation gain.  I'd had to go to the bathroom for awhile at that point, and I kept bribing myself, like, "After you get up the hill, you can stop at a port-a-potty.  No, after you pass these two people, you can stop at a port-a-potty."  This resulted in me accidentally, almost comically bursting out of the port-a-potty just as the two people I'd previously passed came by.  I left them behind for good at mile eighteen or nineteen, I think, just after we entered the dirt road to the back side of the Monument.

The next stretch was rough.  Though last year, running the half, I was amazed at how beautiful it was behind the Monument, coming up so late in the race, I couldn't really appreciate it.  It was also at that point that us runners really spread out.  After I passed the two people at the backside of the Monument, I I swear to God, I passed no one else, and no one else passed me.  I had slowed down way off goal pace at that point, and it didn't really help that there was no one close to catch, or who was close enough to catch me.  That part was really mentally hard.  

Not long before the end of the stretch behind the Monument, there was a great Barbie-themed aid station.  They called it the Mojo Dojo Casa Aid Station, and everyone was wearing costumes and calling out things like, "Great job, Barbie!" That perked me up a little.  Finally, I reached the part of the race where I was back in town.  With all of the runners spread out like we were, the people at the aid stations would get really excited when one of us approached.  Some girls made a tunnel for me to run through at one point.  My parents showed up at two more aid stations.

So I'll do these little mental tricks when I run, like, at mile 23, instead of saying to myself, "You only have a little more than three miles to go!," I will say, "You've got less than four miles to go!," so that way it seems like a treat when it's actually MUCH less than four miles.  This caused me to momentarily panic, however, because I had a moment where I thought that to myself, then calculated how long it would take to finish and thought, "OH MY GOD, AM I NOT EVEN GOING TO FINISH IN UNDER FIVE HOURS?!" Then I realized, "Oh, yeah, you don't actually have a full four miles to go, you should be fine."

Heading towards the finish line, you go down a paved path through/past the cemetery, then you get on gravel again to head back to Five Rocks Ampitheatre.  There, there was a steep downhill with a sign warning to beware of loose gravel, and a volunteer warning to be careful.  I had another little freak-out moment where I thought, "OH MY GOD, AM I EVEN IN CONTROL OF MY LEGS AT THIS POINT?! WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN?!" But I was fine.  Then you have to take a steep uphill back up, which I was not cool with at that point, but again, I was fine.

I finished in 4:55:13, far off of the lofty 4:30:00 goal, but better than my worst time of 4:56:32.