On the right hand side of this blog, I have attempted to describe myself in the most appropriate manner possible. Really, I have no idea what I am doing with my life- and I really do spend most of my waking moments operating off of some bizarre, subconscious intuition that more or less leads me down a well-chosen path.

Take this past weekend: I signed up to join some of the fine women participating in the Olmsted Scholar program on a weekend getaway to Edinburgh, Scotland. Now, I know that Scotland has absolutely zippo to do with West Africa (caveat: I will contradict this observation later on in the post), but I am always super keen to connect with other women who are participating in the program. I don’t care if you are the actual scholar or the spouse of a scholar- we are all sharing in the same experience.

Our first full day together started with a simple morning run.

On Friday morning, half of the ladies opted to go out for a brief morning run. Me, I’m always happy to find running partners (especially fellow women- you blokes run too fast for me)- so we set out in the chilly morning and strolled at our own paces. The group split up at about the two mile mark, and by the time I returned to the rented apartment, one of our runners was nowhere to be found. It had been about an hour- maybe she had gone for coffee?

As we were stretching, the front door opened and Susan, our intrepid trip organizer announced to everyone that she had the worst sense of direction. “I got lost,” she explained as she came in to the living room, “but I did discover a cool cemetery- and I also noticed that there’s a half marathon going on here this weekend.”

Half marathon? Here? Hello. 

I look at Jen, the only person in the room who currently has a very solid training base built under her legs. She looks back at me and we experience a wordless conversation that sets some wheels in motion. Uh oh.

Let me just stop right here and say that I know full well that it is never a good idea to test your body’s capability without proper preparation. I retain a vivid memory of Megan as a young kid who thought it a good idea to run with my friends in a Bobby Byrne’s Pub 10K out in Mashpee. I had only heard about the race at the last minute, and was by no means a religious runner at that stage in my life. I’d only joined my father in short stretches of pavement as he trained for the 1986 Falmouth Road Race- and in doing so he would always stop me from attempting to run too far with him. Now, as I told him about this 10K race, he was stopping me again with every ounce of authority.

“I don’t want you going out there with no training and collapsing halfway through.” His counsel rang of complete seriousness and it made me scared that my crazy pipe dream would have serious consequences. So I opted not to ran the race.

Returning to the present day, I can tell you that my 2012 running calendar has been less than stellar. My miles have been pretty much non-existent, and the last time I ran anything over ten miles was back when I did the Casablanca Half Marathon in October. For the past two months I have been dealing with scary knee pain that has been stressing me out to no end- and even as I arrived at our Scottish apartment I rolled a once-sprained ankle in such a way that made my whole left leg rather unhappy with my brain. Clearly, I am in no shape to run.

But this god damn half marathon is now a seed that has taken root in my bones and it will not die easily. I decide not to push the issue, but instead tell fellow runner Jen that if she does the half, then I will give it a shot too. Worst comes to worst, I finish with a horrifically exacerbated knee and ankle injury  I will walk the course, and collect another random life story that I can be exploited for exaggeration later on in my life.

….faster than you can say, “I’ll have the vegetarian haggis”, we found ourselves standing in line at the race day expo.

I give you my, “This is either a very good idea, or a very bad idea” face.

Here we have Jen showing off our newest souvenir swag. Even though she was meant to run 20 miles on Sunday, she still has the, “Can you believe we’re doing this?!” look on her face. I think that the bulk of the people participating in the Olmsted Scholar program suffer from a touch of the spontaneous crazies, so I’m happy that Jen is here to take on this race at the last moment.

The expo was pretty fantastic, and one of the tents offered free kinesio taping to runners. I will tell you that the Navy has taught me to shed all modesty as I dropped trou in an doorless tent and allow a physiotherapist to tend to my IT Band and ankle issues.

When I told the physiotherapist that I had come in from Senegal, he announces that he was just listening to Senegalese music, and wanted to take a trip there one day. I ask him who he had been listening to, and he digs out his phone and locates the names of the artists. I do not recognize them- but before you can say “Senegal follows Megan everywhere”, Spotify is playing Amadou et Mariam. I have never heard of these guys, so I subsequently plan on pulling my own Senegal residency card as soon as I get back to Dakar. (Note: Amadou et Mariam are from Mali- not Senegal-  so that makes me feel a bit better.)

With my left leg now looking quite bionic, we leave the tent and are treated to the sounds of The Red Hot Chili Pipers.

That night we head down to the harbor for some mussels and sea bass. Who needs carbo loading when you’re in a land of amazing seafood?

Our view from the restaurant. I take the lighthouse as a good omen for the coming morning’s events.

At 8:00 on Sunday morning we head out to the race wearing our improvised Scottish attire. Jen had the excellent fashion wherewithal to locate culture-appropriate leg warmers, and we were definitely feeling like this race was meant to be.

And speaking of culturally-appropriate, you’ve gotta have someone promoting the hangover cure of Scotland, IRN-BRU.

Even though my left leg is taped up from hip to foot, I am still not sure if this unforeseen 13.1 miles is such a good idea for my unconditioned body. I will need all of the sustenance that I can take with me on this route, so I grab a Sharpie and scrawl a tribute to my amazing friend and brain tumor survivor, BethAnn Telford. Not only is she an Ironman Triathlete, but she just qualified for and completed another Boston Marathon. Whenever I am having a bad day, I always think of her and tell myself to suck it up and get on with life.

Porta-Potties may be nasty under any circumstance, but you have to admit- the backdrop of Scotland’s green hills does make them rather attractive, no?

Not that I’m big on capturing the interior of porta-potties, but as I am making one last pit stop before game start, I look down and see that everyone really does have their own brand of pre-race rituals. MGD? Really? I mean- forget that it’s not even 9 o’clock in the morning- this person guzzled this as their beer of choice? Bleh.

As we make our way to the start, Jen and I give each other a quick hug before lining up in our respective corrals. I have modest goals of finishing under three hours, so I am situated farther in the back of the crowd. We wait for things to get underway and are soon treated to a beautiful rendition of the Scottish National Anthem. Here’s a small bit of the song.

And before we know it, it’s off to the races!

I am fully aware that this post is getting very long, so I will take a pause here so we can all stand in line for the bathroom before getting on with the actual route. Stay tuned to see whether or not this turns out to be my worst idea since drinking way too much cheap tequila in the streets of Pattaya….