"I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week."

Before I begin with my apology for not posting last week and a super shallow exploration as to why today's run was one of the hardest in the history of Dayton-kind, I would like to take a second and point out that our blog celebrated its birthday on the second of August...and 11 Drunk Runners is now one year old (awwwww, lil' bloggie is all growed up!). In the past year, we have posted well over 200-something times, to the tune of a post once every 1.6 days. Since my first "blogged" run in August, I've run just over 800 miles, which is roughly the distance between Napa and Phoenix. I finished one marathon, and I estimate that I drank every single beer in Cologne on fifteen occasions. In fact, the reason I missed the "birthday" itself was because I was in a library frantically reading so I could spend the weekend near Geneva drinking cases of wine while watching some very good friends get married and dance to Jamiroquai until 4:15 in the morning. My wife warned me about weddings on the continent, but I never thought the Swiss were capable of that.

Besides, I think forgetting this birthday while on a drunken binge is a perfect opportunity to emulate my future take on fatherhood.

Needless to say, I would love to hear about everyone else's achievements since they joined the blog. I know a couple of you simply, physically, can't run right now. And I know some of you haven't had the time to run because of insane workloads, and that you might feel depressed because you aren't getting that consistent endorphin rush that helped you finally kick your unseemly methodone habit (cough cough, P.P.)...So now is the perfect time to celebrate what you HAVE done and be optimistic about the future (i.e. what you can do again). Tell us something that you're really proud of, and don't be afraid to boast. I mean, it's a celebration, bitches!

Seriously-- Just off the top of my head, I know of at least three marathons, five liters of frozen snot, five hundred giant mosquitoes, and bucketloads of money raised for leukemia research...That's more awesome than a million hot dogs. Help me out and tell me a story about the good stuff that makes you want to get back out there.

So, on to the more mundane. Because of a job interview two weeks ago, my running schedule got thrown completely out of whack...and by job interview I of course mean "release of new Harry Potter". I only managed seven miles for the week after five straight weeks of twenty-plus a week (Did that make sense? Did I just invent a tongue twister?). I was pretty proud of the consistency, but I didn't let it get me down when the string was broken. Although I haven't run a "long run" since my East End Safari,I managed 20 miles last week by running four miles on Monday and six miles on Tuesday, followed by the reverse on Thursday and Friday (six, four). It worked pretty well, and I was pleased to get to the twenty-mile-threshold without needing any more than four runs or a two-digit distance along the way. I figured that this fact, combined with two days off over the weekend, would make for an extra easy run today...but I was way wrong. I have no idea what happened, but my six miles today felt like twelve. I came in at exactly 9:00 miles, which is my slowest day since June 15th, allowing for Tessa runs. My legs simply would not move, and when I got home, I had a slight catch in my throat that seemed to signal "imminent problems with gag reflex, i.e. imminent christening of apartment building with puke". Luckily, I didn't vomit, although it wouldn't be the first time.
Generally, I've been fatigued all day, and I'm wondering if I didn't catch a cold or a slight case of food poisoning in Switzerland. If its the latter (and I think it is, but I'm being nice on the details), than this would be twice in a row that steak tartar has done me wrong, and I might have to unhappily remove it from my list of edible objects. Either way, I hope to be able to run again tomorrow.
I know I often say that I rarely regret a run after I've run it, although I often dread them in advance. However, I really think I could have done without running today. I felt slightly "off" beforehand and completely disgusting afterwards...Oh, and it rained on me for the last mile. Which means I've run a total of nine miles in the rain over the past three weeks. Which won't be reflected in the following plots:




Happy Birthday Everybody! You have all had an amazing year, and I've been so thrilled to be able to share in your experiences. We are all runners here, even if we can't run right now :)