Pour some sugar on meeeee

I would like to give a huge shout-out (isn't that what the kids are saying these days?) and an even bigger CONGRATS to my friends and training partners, Torrey and Cindy. They both ran in their first marathon Sunday and kicked some Long Beach ass! I am so proud of them.

And I was secretly hoping that the post-race report would include sentiments such as "Twenty-six miles? It felt like two!" and "Wall? What wall?" and maybe even "Nowhere near as tough as you think!"

Instead, I received this email from Torrey:

It was VERY hard. VERY. VERY. HARD. I'm your friend so I can't try to sugar coat anything for you. Hard, but great. In a hard way.

Then this voicemail from Cindy:

I have to walk backwards down the stairs and I feel like I've just ridden a horse - for four weeks straight!

Okay then. Is it time to panic? I haven't spoken to either one of them directly yet to get the step-by-step details. But maybe that's a good thing. No sugar-coating? I want to be covered in the sweet stuff like a Krispy Creme Original. Maybe I don't REALLY want to know how awful this is really going to be.

I actually enjoy living in that cozy little world called Denial (perhaps you've visited there yourself once or twice?). The thought of how I might feel at mile 14 or 18 or 21 is somewhere I really don't want to go.

I think Tuesday might be a little early to be psyching myself out. Friday, when I'm in San Francisco and holding my race bib in my hands, maybe then.

Sunday, I have no choice but to cross the starting line. I'll have the words of my friend John, a seven-year survivor, to keep me going when I'm sure that I can't possibly take even one more step. I'm planning to write these words with a sharpie on my arm before the race.

"Better than Chemo."