Best. Church Lockin. Ever.

Going through a divorce as person who likes to stay busy means I really have thrown the throttle into hyper drive and am doing all the things I can to stay busy. So, when a few months ago, friend Amber asked me to run a marathon with her, I was all in. She sent me a link to the Hatfield/McCoy Family Reunion marathon, and I signed up without a second thought.

I didn't do this in a vacuum - this was to be my fifth marathon, so I knew what I was getting into. Amber and I planned to run our long training runs together, and the two of us alternately solved all the world's problems during those times. Training went well for me - only had to bail on one long run due to a pulled hamstring while learning to wake board. Amber wasn't so lucky - she dealt with blisters, allergic reaction to many forms of energy gel, a horrible wasp sting, a potential stress fracture, etc., etc., etc. But the two of us persevered through training!

Like I say, I signed up without giving it much thought, and really didn't know all of the details until we were actually on the car ride up there. When I would sketch out the few details I knew to people (not a certified course, involved some trail running, a swinging bridge was involved, etc.) I got many "Why the HELL did you pick that marathon?" comments, to which I replied, "I didn't! Amber did! This is all her idea!" The weekend took another unexpected turn when we discovered the two race hotels were overbooked and we were going to have to stay about an hour away. Not. Cool. So, imagine our surprise when we got an email from the race director offering the cots at the First Baptist Church in Williamson, WV to the first ten people to respond.

Oh I remember church lockins. One phone call later, two cots had our names on it. DONE.

Last Friday the adventure started. My car is starting to wear (the check engine light has been on for five years, no joke) so I asked Mama to borrow her car to take the trip out of town. Once the Mamamobile was acquired, I trotted out to Amber's house, and we gussied up the Mamamobile in style.

it says mamamobile up top and RAWR on the hood

 

26.2 or bust

this says two battlecats just passed, but in a cruel twist of irony the mamamobile doesn't go very fast and we got passed an awful lot going up the mountains to west virginia.

It wasn't until we got started with the gussy-ing that I realized I loved painting cars. I saved the pens and am going to do this with shocking regularity on my own car. It will be like my own personal Twitter feed.

Once we hit the road, Amber entertained us by reading a review of the race written by T-Rex Runner and it was a hoot and got us all excited for what was to come. We made it to the pre-race pasta dinner only an hour behind schedule because someone was too busy making out with her phone to actually give me directions on where to go (ahem, AMBER). We showed up, got our race packets and made our way through the Belfry High School to the cafeteria ten minutes before dinner was to end.

This is where things went slightly awry. And by awry, I mean it was all "what the hell is going on here?" No one was standing behind the line to get us spaghetti (reviews said Olive Garden catered it, and I was down with that because I love unlimited salad and breadsticks, but this was distinctly not Olive Garden) and there were no utensils to get the spaghetti. After a moment, a woman showed up and reached right on in that mound of spaghetti and plopped a fistful on a plate. When she went to scoop up sauce (with a ladel this time) Amber paused her and asked if there was vegetarian sauce. "We're out," she replied, and plopped red sauce on her noodles. But we did get two rolls and that was cool. Salad line, only French dressing. Is there anything else, querries Amber again. We're out. This is going to be the theme for the evening, by the way.

i liked the strawberry cake, but didn't get a chance to finish it because amber was worried we'd miss the hatfield/mccoy re-enactment.

We got to the auditorium in time to hear the race director give announcements about the various races being run the next day, and I was stunned to learn there were about eleventy billion races being run. And a corresponding tshirt for each race. And it did make me laugh because every time the race director would say, "Make sure you get your tshirt for the kid's fun run before we run out!" I'd mutter under my breath to Amber, "They're going to run out."

After the announcements, Anse Hatfield and Randal McCoy showed up in person and told the tale of why they hate each others guts. In a nutshell, when you get mad, you kill someone in the other clan. One rotten apple in the bushel bag? BANG YOU'RE DEAD, HATFIELD. Tripped and stubbed your big toe? KERBLEWEY TAKE THAT, MCCOY. I enjoyed that part very much, but the pictures I took were mas terrible. After that, door prizes! And guess what? THEY RAN OUT. But not before I got:

this little beauty

After that, I totally got star-struck, because we met the gal who writes the T-Rex blog! Yippee!! She and her crew were very sweet and didn't mind my stammering "HOMYGOSH I TOTALLY LOVE YOUR BLOG AND I BLOG TOO YOU SHOULD READ MY BLOG BY IT'S NOT AS COOL AS YOURS KTNKS BYE." Then we all took a photo together.

superstarz

And of course:

they seem to be getting along in this picture pretty well. hope it lasts and that no one gets shivved.

Next, we meet up with two adorable ladies from the First Baptist Church in Williamson, WV, Miss Linda and Miss Joyce. They escorted us from the high school to the church duplex where we were to spend the night. At first I was really bummed because I totally had visions of the two of us together sleeping in a row of cots like in the movies in the church parish hall, but quickly got over my disappointment because I remembered I had packed two sets of pajamas: one for "surrounded by all women/non-threatening men" and one for "I am sleeping with creeps in the room."

guess which cot is mine and guess which one is amber's?

Miss Linda and Miss Joyce had us set up in style. They left us a whole bunch of snacks for us to fuel up for the race.

bananas, apples, granola bars and marshmallows. i never figured out the marshmallows.

 

The one thing we forgot when packing for the trip was Sharpie markers so that we could tattoo ourselves up in style for the race, much like we did with the Mamamobile. I must say, I am understanding graffitti much more after this weekend's experiences. We left the church for a quick run to the Wal-Mart to pick up Sharpies and a Tide pen because you know I dumped spaghetti all over the front of my white skirt.

 

One Wal-Mart trip later we had Sharpies, Lemonheads, a bikini with bicycles printed on it and a Wonder Woman nightie (and no Tide pen despite multiple forays down checkout aisles peering between shopping carts in the line) later we made it back to the church and settled down for the evening.

 

5:30 came early, and we were very close to being ready when the church van arrived to drop us off at the start line in the Food City parking lot. We Sharpie tatted ourselves gingerly bouncing in the van, and decided to take just one of the four pens with us to finish the job while stretching and waiting for the starting (shot)gun.
 

chauffeur miss joyce in the church van and us with the bag of sharpies

 

operation sharpie complete. i wore a lightening bolt as a tip of the hat to the ex mr. smith, team name on my left gun, RAWR on my right and flowers on my legs. amber wrote hal in a heart for hal higdon on her right arm and team BCBB (battle cat badass bitches) on her other arm. i tucked the sharpie in my running belt and thought, 'if i lose it, oh well.' i did not lose it. first time i ran a marathon with a sharpie.

 

And the shotgun went off and away we went.

 

This was unlike any other race I'd ever run. It was primarily peopled with folks who are 50 staters, meaning they have a goal to run a marathon in each of the 50 states. The course isn't certified, and there is no time limit; most races will sweep the course after seven hours and make you stop running. Our goal was to finish, so we decided to take it easy, have fun, take pictures if we wanted to and pretty much just focus on having fun and enjoying the experience. Done and done. This is only the second time I've taken a camera with me in a race and I pretty much wore that thing out.

 

this cutie was out to cheer us on wearing her camoflauge tutu. no lie.

megan!! that's not water!!!

As I crossed over mile five, I realized that Sharpie was nagging me. I wanted to do something else with it if I was going to run an entire marathon. So I pulled it out and made five hash marks on my right forearm. When I showed Amber my handiwork, she demended to be hash marked too, and our mile ritual was born.

 

Around mile six was Blackberry Mountain. It's a real mountain, ya'll. Knoxville peeps, it is like Noelton if Noelton was on meth, then smoked a bunch of pot then snorted a bunch of cocaine. It. Was. Tough. Proof on how steep it was?

 

 

But we made it to the top! And now I'm never eating blackberries again.

 

yes we took advice from an 18-wheeler and kept on truckin'

 

On the way back down Amber nudged me and pointed to a guy's shirt. It said, I have run a marathon in all 50 states TWICE. As we came up on him we struck up a conversation and asked about the shirt and the marathons he's run.

 

he ran his first marathon at age 49. holy mother of pearl.

 

i was stupidly excited about seeing the electrion day stabbing site. here it is!

 

amber petting the world's smallest horse

 

me photo bombing a stuffed squirrel holding a nut

 



water/moonshine stop

 

as soon as we passed the halfway point, a woman behind us made the comment that we all three were wearing the same shoe. here we have our shoe sorority picture.

 

this race is especially popular for 50 staters since it crosses into two states. it starts in ky, crosses into wv, then.....

 

crosses back into ky and finishes in wv. i'm not bragging on my guns in these pics, i'm trying to show off my mile hash marks, but you can't really see them.

 

ten miles more!!

 

part of the reason why the course is not certified is because you run through random obstacles. like two miles of mud, and

 

a swinging bridge. about halfway through i made the comment that i felt like indiana jones in the temple of doom and we held hands after that and crossed as quickly as possible.

 

me, on the swinging bridge with train full of coal rushing by in the background. i know it sounds stupid, but i often forget how close we are to coal country.

 

at a water stop arond mile 21, i got a cup of water from this woman and walked a few steps, then turned around and asked her if she was in wal-mart the night before. she said yes, and i asked if i cut in front of her looking for a tide pen. she couldn't believe i recognized her. it's a small world. or rural west virginia, one.

  

last hash mark!

 

only race i've ever been in where you get cold wet towels at the end - very thoughtful! finishers got medals and a special mason jar!

The race finish was just a couple of blocks from the church, so we walked back, got cleaned up and got ready to head back home.

amber, miss linda, miss joyce and me in front of our duplex.

 

So yea! Fifth marathon complete. The last marathon I ran I was fighting horrible depression and in a really crappy place, personally and professionally. I don't know how I managed during that time, but I did. It's good knowing that I put a bookend to that chapter and have this as the "last" marathon I ran. There's already some talk about Charleston in November, so who knows.

 

Team BCBB, peace OUT!