Ass pain and iron pills

Hey. So, uh, I'm trying to figure out how I ran a 3:39 marathon in October. Yeah. Tonight we had to do four one mile repeats at race pace (meaning the pace that you would run a marathon at). I ran my marathon at an 8 minute per mile pace. I ran my four intervals at an average of 7:45, which is only fifteen seconds faster. I was consistent and, if anything, I picked it up for the last two miles. The problem is this: there is no freaking way that I could run an addition TWENTY TWO MILES at that pace. So how did I do it? Quite clearly I took a shortcut during the OIM. I can't figure it. We get back to the store and start doing some lunges and planks and I pretty much collapsed on the pavement and started crying. Everyone was up and heading into the store and I was still grinding through my twenty push ups. I guess it's time to start taking iron pills again. Michael was running seven minute miles. Jerk. My ass is sore.
I could end it all. I could put a stop to this madness. I only need to eat less food, and then I don't have to run as far. But I can't. I love timbits, bagels, cereal, pasta, cheese, wine, chips, hamburgers, steak, salad, lattes, scrambled eggs, nuts... if it isn't bolted down or still moving: I will eat it. Correction: if it isn't bolted down or moving faster than an eight minute per mile pace I will eat it.
In other news, some of the cool kids from our running group are getting together for beers tomorrow night - and I'm invited! I'm not as fast or as fit as them, but they must like my cherubic smile and the way I collapse and sob after the long runs on Sundays. Michael is going to go which is awesome, because he's not traditionally social, but these are the people that he runs with so I'm really glad that he's fallen in with an outgoing crowd: he's a great guy, who wouldn't like him? But the weirdest bit? He thinks we should take the bus. Normally he is the designated driver. During the six year period that we dated I saw him drink three beers once (it was awesome: we were taking public transit and he had to sit down because he was a bit looped). This could be an entertaining night. I just hope he isn't too hung over to drive me to the ferry on Saturday morning.
Lastly, I decided to try a Zinfandel (no really: get your own blog) and, though it might not be the most fantastic wine I've had, it's interesting. It tastes a bit like dirt and licorice, but the overwhelming taste is surprisingly personal to me. If this makes much sense: it tastes the way the grass on Lasqueti Island smells in the summer. In the summer the sun beats down on it and it becomes parched (further exacerbated by the fact that the soil quality isn't the best and it's a very dry island) and there is a wonderfully distinct, sweet, earthy scent that mingles with the smells of the pine needles disintegrating in shaded glens, and of the ocean at low tide, and of warmed, smooth Arbutus trees and dust. So this wine tastes like the time that I was sunbathing on my dad's floating dock (which he had pulled up onto the shore) with it's pale, bleached and splintery wood, the tangy scent of ocean and parched grass wafting over me as the otter (that my dog would later discover and torment ceaslessly) rooted around in the den that he/she had made under the structure. Falling in and out of sleep. Wanting to read, listen to music, but being lulled by the rhythmic rush of the waves against the shore, the distant hammering of someone constructing something carrying across the bay, the cry of the gull, the hoarse croak of the raven. Swatting away interested hornets and clacking grasshoppers. Wanting to roast smokies for dinner. Being reassured that the Peppy San was once more moored in our harbour. All things as it should be. The summer going as planned. Phosphorous in the water at night. The seal (I named him Ripley) bellyflopping to scare salmon. The gritty feel of salt between my hands and my kayak paddle. All those crazy little frogs on Main Road when I was biking that day. The racoon that I caught digging for gooey ducks in one of our bays that hardly acknowledged me before lumbering away, nonplussed by my presence.
Wow. Haven't had such an experience with a wine before. I feel that I should go visit my dad up on "the rock". This summer, undoubtedly. I'm not sure how many summers I'll have left up there.