Peanut butter and jelly couples costume

This is just based off of me being me buuuut….If you have a puppy or dog and you have an obvious bond with them try this….(unless it’s so off from your personality that it does the opposite and freaks them tf out) Just be annoying. Annoy them until they do what your asking or wanting 😂 And imo the higher pitched you can get your voice the better. Example: I have a 12 week old puppy and last week I taught him to say “I want it!” Clearly in bark/whine dog talk. But as I was putting peanut butter in his Kong toy I kept saying “Do you want it!? Say I WANT IT!” And he sat and stared at me for like 2 mins like wth do you want me to do? He huffed at me and I was like “yeah!!!” Then I said it all again and then he whined. I got excited and screamed yeah!!!! Then he got excited and started whine bark more and then I just loudly high pitch repeated “I WANT IT!” I said it in more of a dog way than I human way…more just the sound of the words a dog can make…and then after like 3-4 more time’s repeating it he made the same noise I was making and I freaked out so happy and and said YES!!!! GOOD BOYYYYYY!!! And made a big deal out of it as I handed him his Kong. He’s been doing it on his own since that night 😂😂😂 I taught my last dog to say I love you the same way. And they have to have the same I amount of whines or barks or whatever noise as there are words BEFORE they get what they want 🤷🏼‍♀️😂

I'm looking for a regular supplier of American stuff like brown sugar, monster energy drinks, peanut butter, etc. I can find monsters in random stores but NEVER brown sugar and once stores sell out of the monsters, they stay sold out.

OK so where I live we got two brands of 'all natural' peanut butters (without any bs additives, just peanuts). The problem IS, one of those doesn't have the oil separating out on top AND it also tastes slightly sweet!
Like I made a bad decision yesterday and bought the second PB which is 2x expensive and it is just totally savory, no sweetness whatsoever and a ton of oil separates. I've been freaking out about this for a while - is the first peanut butter a lie?! Do they secretly put sugar and like palm oil in it? Especially since I learned that food companies adulterate food! Guys tell me how your peanut butters taste. Well not like I'll be repurchasing anytime soon anyway because I binged recently and got in 6k calorie debt.
About running. I've had this fucking pain/stiffness in the arch of my right foot for maybe 2 weeks now. It feels like a cramp but I don't think they last that long. I couldn't even make it 2 miles today. Someone more G than me would've pushed through.. Doing HIIT also sucks. The last time I had a painful ankle it was from undereating protein but I'm eating enough of that now (hello ducking jar of pb?!)

Hi. Sorry this is so long! I have my Quintron Sibo test ready to go, but I'm not sure if I need to eat normally prior to doing the Prep Diet, since I've been on a liquid diet for the last 2 weeks?
I've had various GI problems for the last 30 years. I have hypothyroidism, so I've had my share of too much constipation and several episodes of not pooping for 5-10 days, followed by episodes of a rather spastic colon. I was told by a GI doc that I had IBS. Aside from the several extreme constipation episodes, I'd say for the more part I've had softer stool, and sometimes very soft.
In 2015 I had oral and GI candida that seemed to have been caused by 30 days of Doxy followed by eating too many carbs in one sitting. That was successfully treated with 30 days of Oral Nystatin. I have been GF since 2015. My diet consists of mainly whole foods. Protein based (chicken, fish, beef, some high protein dairy, pork), and low carb.
In 2018 I was found to have cryptosporidium. It was successfully treated. No more IBS and spatic colon after that.
In early February 2023, I had a section of my colon removed (not cancer). After the surgery I was told when I could resume eating my normal foods and to work my way up to 25 grams of fiber. This was towards late February. Trying to add more fiber to my diet, I bought Cherios. I ate some two days in a row (probably too much). That was the start of all hell breaking loose in my GI tract. I had the poops for 3 days. I pooped about 9 times a day. Prior to my surgery, I rarely ever had gas due to what I normally eat. The Cherios caused so much painful and strange smelling gas, it reminded me of a dairy barn. After I finally got all of the Cherios out, I had extreme dizziness, nausea, no appetite, headache, a few burps, and new aches and pains. I decided I might have SiFO triggered by too many Cherio's carbs, so I asked my PCP for Oral Nystatin. After just 3 doses, my extreme nausea and dizziness went away. I took Oral Nystatin for the full 2 weeks that was prescribed. I felt better until I ate peanut butter. Prior to my surgery, I could eat peanut butter with no problem. Eating peanut butter after my surgery caused gurgling stomach, a lot of gas, bloat, and more poops that lasted for several days.
From the Cherio's insident forward, I pooped 8-10 times per day, every day. Poops were messy and loose. I don't know if they floated because I had to use so much toilet paper, I couldn't tell. When the poops would eventually stop. I'd have a day or two of almost constipation (in which I'd take Miralax), and the poops, gas, bloat, and stomach pain would start again after I ate something that would trigger it. Through all of this I had stomach pains that I did not have prior to colon surgery. Occassionally I also have had a strange sensation in my mouth. It was almost a dry tasteless gas sensation. Very hard to describe. Eventually dairy seemed to bother me, too. It would cause gas that it never caused before my colonsurgery.
The next food that I used to be able to eat that caused diseasterous side effects is gluten free oatmeal. It gas me the same response as the Cherio's. Lots of poops, and terrible dairy barn gas.
About 4 weekends ago, I felt like I was running out things I could eat. I felt great eating meat, but I couldn't live on meat alone. I was supposed to have fiber. So I brought gluten free bread. Just like the Cherio's, too much dairy, peanut butter, and gluten free oat meal, the gluten free bread caused lots of dairy barn gas, major stomach pains, bloat, and poops galore. One of those days I stopped counting when the poops reached 10, and it was only the afternoon. I had to poop every 45 minutes all day and into the night. At that point my life was being ruled by my colon, and I'd barely left the house for over 3 months.
Two weeks ago I saw a Nutritionist and Diabetes Specialist. She agreed it could be Sibo. She recommended I stop eating all food and go on a liquid diet, so I did. At first I was only drinking Boost, Coconut Water, V-8 juice, yogurt, and my normal coffee with plant milk that I've been having for years. The first day the V8 juice gave me terrible gas and the poops. After that, my body seemed to settle into the liquid diet. Within 3 days, my stomach felt so much better! No more gas. No more pooping around the clock. Way less bloat! My stomach still hurts a bit, but it's mainly when it's empty. I'm mainly having 4-5 Boost's per day and I've recently added in a small portion meat here and there, and I've been fine. I've had minimal V-8 juice, and I've had yogurt every day. And I'm actually having normal BM's! I'm down to going 4-5 times a day. I've also had a tiny bit of contipation, of which I took Miralax.
Aside from the Sibo test I'm doing this week, I'm also testing for H.Pylori, and doing a stool test.

Hopefully this doesn't fall under the "self defense" thing since I'm not planning on going to jail for either example lol.
Stabbing someone is illegal by default unless maybe you have some contract, consent and the opposing party doesn't press charges. But would adding something to the blade make it "extra" illegal?
For example if the other person is known to be allergic to peanuts, would stabbing them with a knife smeared in peanut butter be any different from stabbing them with a freshly cleaned one?
I figure there might be an "intent to kill" angle, but it's probably hard to argue that someone swinging a clean knife at you didn't have the intent to kill. Premeditated murder maybe, since they had to make preparations for it? But what if it was spontaneous? (Ex. Fight broke out while making PBNJ).
I'm also curious about rust (-> tetanus) and generic toxins like poison / venom like snake venom.

Hello guys! I’m 28 m, 85 kg 178cm at 20% body fat. I’ve been going to the gym for the last 2 years and I’ve decided to go on a cut 3 weeks ago, my calories are 13000/week (roughly 1850 daily) . No cooking oil, not even the “zero” calorie spray. No salad dressings/ peanut butter. I AM COUNTING EVERY GRAM OF FOOD and adding up 100 calories on the total just to make sure that i’m not undercounting.
I’ve done thyroid/testosterone tests and they are at normal levels, I THINK I may have sleep apnea (didn’t underwent sleep study yet)
doing Resistance training & cardio 5 days a week
The problem is I’ve only lost 1kg since I started, I’ve been trying to make it make sense but NO I don’t think its a good idea to go lower than 1850 calories
What y’all think 🧐

I'm not a furry I swear.
Anyway, I'm very bored and hoping to meet someone who is wanting a long term relationship! Some things about me are that I'm 20 and from Texas. I'm also black and ok with sending pics. It'd be cool if you're also from TX, but if not that's ok too!
I like playing games (looking for a Minecraft partner), watching anime, working out, and reading manwha. Finding someone who has common interests is cool and I'm always up for recommendations if you've got any.
What I'm looking for in a partner:
-don't really care about race
-likes voice calls (it's my favorite way to communicate, especially early on because vibes are important)
-in decent shape/taking care of themselves
-is ok with cringe jokes (they make up half of my personality tbh)
-would prefer someone who is from North America because of time zone differences
-likes peanut butter (this is a non negotiable unless you're allergic UwU)
If interested, dm me your age and favorite candy :3

Race Information

• Name: Saskatchewan Half Marathon
• Date: May 28, 2023
• Distance: 13.1 miles
• Location: Saskatoon, SK, Canada
• Website: www.saskmarathon.ca
• Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/9157505645#kudos
• Time: 1:37:05

Goals

Goal	Description	Completed?
A	Sub 1:39	Yes

Splits

Mile	Time
1	7:11
2	7:13
3	6:57
4	7:15
5	7:36
6	7:20
7	9:34
8	7:08
9	7:14
10	7:11
11	7:08
12	7:02
13	7:01
14	5:52 avg

Training

Prior to this, my last race was the Chicago Marathon in October 2022. I put in a decent training block but overestimated my fitness and struggled to a 3:29 finish. Following that, I decided to take a bit of a break from running and get into the gym and weight train, and then run a marathon in the spring. I spent the next three months lifting weights and resting my knee and ankle tendons for a bit, doing a bare minimum amount of running, only averaging 15-20 miles per week in Oct-Nov-Dec before attempting to ramp up in the new year. I did get up to 40 miles per week in February, but when it came time to ramp up to marathon training, I struggled to maintain any kind of consistency. A combination of burnout, other life commitments (parenting two preschoolers is a lot of time and energy), playing hockey twice a week, and a very long, protracted lingering winter resulted in me dropping a lot of runs and alternating a 30 mile week with a 10 mile week. By April it was apparent that I wasn’t going to be anywhere near my usual level of marathon fitness, so I had the option of either struggling through a slow marathon followed by a month of painful recovery, or downgrading to a much more manageable half marathon. I opted for the smart choice, knowing that I’ve got over a dozen half marathons under my belt and I would be able to manage a decent effort just on lifetime miles. I scrapped my training plan and just made a goal to get out the door and run most days.
Once I realigned my expectations, things seemed to come together a bit better. I averaged around 30 miles per week with the exception of one week where I was sick with a cold. Did a couple simple lactate threshold workouts (3x10min), and a few 10-12 mile long runs, the rest was done at an easy pace. Not ideal, but I wanted to keep it easy and simple with the goal of building a more consistent routine and avoiding burnout.
I didn’t really go into this race with a time goal. I was quite a bit heavier than my ideal race weight and nowhere near the base mileage or fitness level I’m usually in for races. There was no chance of me even coming close to my PR of 1:20 and after a poor Chicago performance, my focus was more on executing a good race and building confidence in myself again. I wanted to aim for a negative split and finish feeling physically strong. My Stryd was estimating a 1:39 and I was confident that I was actually in better shape than that because I hadn’t really done any high effort training in the past three months to give Stryd good data. So I decided following its recommended power would give me a nice safe goal time and I could go faster if I was confident in my abilities once I was well into the race

Pre-race

Another motivation for me in this race was that this would be the first time my kids are present and old enough to be engaged with the race. I have two daughters who will be 3 and 5 years old this year and I want to start exposing them to running and hopefully they develop an interest. Having two kids also creates a few logistical challenges. We turned this race into a family getaway as we live in a small town a 5 hour drive away. We packed the family into a van and drove to Saskatoon on Friday. Spent Friday and Saturday playing in the pool, visiting parks, doing a bit of shopping, trying to find food to eat that was healthy and yet appealing to picky young children, and trying to sleep two to a bed in a hotel room with two kids who were full of excitement and wonder from visiting a new city. Needless to say I didn’t follow the typical strict pre-race diet and activity regimen of a wannabe-amateur-elite runner. No shakeout runs on Friday or Saturday, the last supper was spicy deluxe pad thai ordered to our hotel room. I did manage to get to bed at a decent time, because what else is there to do when you have two sleeping preschoolers in your hotel room?
I like this race in particular because it’s small enough and conveniently located that the logistics of getting to the race are very simple. It’s a 10 minute drive to the race from our hotel, and a two minute walk from the huge parking lot to the start of the race. Bag drop was unnecessary because I had my wife with me (who I bribed with a new Lululemon belt bag). Morning routine was wake up at 5:30, do a few stretches, quick shower, skip morning oatmeal and chocolate milk because still kinda full from last night’s dinner, grab a drive-thru coffee on the way to the race, eat a stroopwafel in the car, get to the race at 6:30, dump my stuff with my wife, give the kids a hug for good luck, skip pre-race warm up and instead just do a bit of dancing and jogging in place in the starter’s chute. They do the opening ceremony, count us down, and we’re off.

Race

Stryd gave me a power target of 315W which roughly translated to a 7:30/mile pace. I wanted to keep close to that pace for at least the first half because I got overly ambitious in Chicago and cooked myself in the first half and then paid for it later. A negative split was a bigger priority than a goal time. Once we got out of the chute and started to stretch out, I was pleased to find that 315W felt pretty relaxed and it actually took some effort to not speed up. The first few miles were a net downhill and I tend to not resist gravity and let the hill carry me, so I actually ended up going a bit faster than my pace and power targets, but no big deal. My breathing was relaxed and my legs felt strong.
It was around the second mile that I became aware of some rubbing on the back of my heel. The Hyperion Elites that I was wearing have a buttress on the inside of the heel that rubs on my Achilles tendon. In Chicago I finished the race with a couple bloody blisters on my heels but they didn’t bother me too much during the race. I meant to bring moleskin to protect my heels but forgot them, and I figured that in a half marathon it probably would only be about…half as bad as Chicago?...and I could live with it. But after the third mile I could feel my heel starting to get irritated and I had to make a decision: do I worry about this and adjust my stride or stop to try and adjust my shoe or sock somehow? Or do I just accept that I’ll have some blisters at the end of the race and deal with it after? I’ve never dealt with any serious injuries from running through a mild irritation that I deemed not serious, so I decided that I could live with the pain and went on.
It was at the end of mile 4 that my heel went from irritated to angry and I could tell a blister was forming. That was a little too soon for my liking and I decided to stop and tighten my shoe a bit. That only seemed to make it worse, so I stopped again to pull my socks up really tight. That didn’t help either. I stopped again to try tying my shoe looser? That seemed to relieve a bit of pressure and I managed to run for another mile and a half, at a faster pace now because I was losing time. Then I felt the blister on my left foot pop. That didn’t feel so good. Stopped again and loosened up all the laces and then adjusted them to redistribute the pressure on my foot. Ran for a bit longer but then the right heel started to hurt. Tried retying the right shoe. Limped along for a minute and then tried folding the socks back to double the padding around the blisters. That didn’t work. Then I felt the skin on my left foot actually tear and I knew there was a nice big chunk of raw exposed skin now being rubbed down by the back of my shoe, and every step felt like a combination of salt on an open wound and a butter knife being scraped over a sunburn. At that point I seriously considered just dropping out of the race, and if I had traveled to the race solo I probably would have thrown in the towel but I told my wife to be at the finish line at a certain time with my kids to cheer me on and I didn’t want them to miss me. So in one last effort to relieve the friction on my heel I stopped after the halfway turnaround and relaced both shoes with a heel lock. Both of the aglets (the plastic thingys on the end of the laces) popped off when I pulled the laces out of the eyelets to relace them and I struggled with sweat dripping in my eyes and shaky hands to push the soft laces through the tiny little eyelets on the shoes which took way longer than it should have. But after all that was said and done I stood up and ran a few strides and to my relief, while my ankles were both raw and bloody, the rubbing seemed to be gone.
Well, now I had some work to do. Due to all the stops, I was feeling fairly fresh despite the painful heels, and despite it all I had run the first half of the race in 50 minutes, which made a 1:39 pretty achievable provided no more shoe problems. I was feeling a sense of urgency (and also had a bit of frustrated energy to burn) so I gave myself permission to turn up the effort and try to catch some of the people that I was running with before I needed to deal with my shoes. The miles ticked away pretty seamlessly. The ankles didn’t seem to be getting any worse, and everything else was feeling fine. I started to pick off some of the runners I had passed earlier in the race. I crossed paths with a few runners I knew, which is a fun feature of this race being mostly a long out-and-back, you’ll meet people coming in the opposite direction for a good portion of the race.
The last couple of miles are a slight net uphill so it gets progressively more difficult at the end as you feel that elevation on tired legs. Despite that, I ran progressive negative splits from mile 9 through the finish. In the last 2 miles, I was matching paces with a younger guy who eventually sped up and pulled away, then in the last mile with another guy who was clearly trying to race me (as I subtly ratcheted up the pace trying to race him). In the last 400m we dropped any pretenses and gave it everything we had in an unspoken sprint to the finish. I’m pretty sure I was grinning in the last 100m as we weaved around some of the 10k walkers and dueled to the finish. He ended up pulling away and beating my by a couple of steps but that was the most fun part of the race, and we high fived in the finishing chute afterwards.

Post-race

Waiting for me at the finish line was my family, and let me tell you, having your kids cheer “yay Daddy!” makes it all worth it. We posed for some family pics and then grabbed some post race snacks with my 3 year old on my shoulder (she took my cheesy bread and ate it, but I kept the non-alcoholic craft beer). My four year old was concerned about the boo boos on my feet but I assured her that I was really tough and that they barely even hurt (I have a bloody red circle of raw skin about the size of a twoonie on one ankle) She told me I was really tough so that was a nice boost to the ego. Then we went back to the hotel for a shower, packed up our stuff and hopped in the van for the drive home.
I’m not sure what’s next for me. I’m not very keen at the idea of training for a marathon this summer, because I have a lot of baseball planned as well as family time. I might get back in the gym and do some more weight training and speed work and then maybe a low mileage training plan for another half in the fall and improve my time from this race. In any case I feel more energized and motivated and maybe I’m past my little burnout now. A race without a ton of expectations is a nice break from the constant PR and WMM qualifying grind I’ve been on for the last few years.
Made with a new race report generator created by herumph.

Race Information

• Name: Saskatchewan Half Marathon
• Date: May 28, 2023
• Distance: 13.1 miles
• Location: Saskatoon, SK, Canada
• Website: www.saskmarathon.ca
• Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/9157505645#kudos
• Time: 1:37:05

Goals

Goal	Description	Completed?
A	Sub 1:39	Yes

Splits

Mile	Time
1	7:11
2	7:13
3	6:57
4	7:15
5	7:36
6	7:20
7	9:34
8	7:08
9	7:14
10	7:11
11	7:08
12	7:02
13	7:01
13.2	5:52 avg

Training

Prior to this, my last race was the Chicago Marathon in October 2022. I put in a decent training block but overestimated my fitness and struggled to a 3:29 finish. Following that, I decided to take a bit of a break from running and get into the gym and weight train, and then run a marathon in the spring. I spent the next three months lifting weights and resting my knee and ankle tendons for a bit, doing a bare minimum amount of running, only averaging 15-20 miles per week in Oct-Nov-Dec before attempting to ramp up in the new year. I did get up to 40 miles per week in February, but when it came time to ramp up to marathon training, I struggled to maintain any kind of consistency. A combination of burnout, other life commitments (parenting two preschoolers is a lot of time and energy), playing hockey twice a week, and a very long, protracted lingering winter resulted in me dropping a lot of runs and alternating a 30 mile week with a 10 mile week. By April it was apparent that I wasn’t going to be anywhere near my usual level of marathon fitness, so I had the option of either struggling through a slow marathon followed by a month of painful recovery, or downgrading to a much more manageable half marathon. I opted for the smart choice, knowing that I’ve got over a dozen half marathons under my belt and I would be able to manage a decent effort just on lifetime miles. I scrapped my training plan and just made a goal to get out the door and run most days.
Once I realigned my expectations, things seemed to come together a bit better. I averaged around 30 miles per week with the exception of one week where I was sick with a cold. Did a couple simple lactate threshold workouts (3x10min), and a few 10-12 mile long runs, the rest was done at an easy pace. Not ideal, but I wanted to keep it easy and simple with the goal of building a more consistent routine and avoiding burnout.
I didn’t really go into this race with a time goal. I was quite a bit heavier than my ideal race weight and nowhere near the base mileage or fitness level I’m usually in for races. There was no chance of me even coming close to my PR of 1:20 and after a poor Chicago performance, my focus was more on executing a good race and building confidence in myself again. I wanted to aim for a negative split and finish feeling physically strong. My Stryd was estimating a 1:39 and I was confident that I was actually in better shape than that because I hadn’t really done any high effort training in the past three months to give Stryd good data. So I decided following its recommended power would give me a nice safe goal time and I could go faster if I was confident in my abilities once I was well into the race

Pre-race

Another motivation for me in this race was that this would be the first time my kids are present and old enough to be engaged with the race. I have two daughters who will be 3 and 5 years old this year and I want to start exposing them to running and hopefully they develop an interest. Having two kids also creates a few logistical challenges. We turned this race into a family getaway as we live in a small town a 5 hour drive away. We packed the family into a van and drove to Saskatoon on Friday. Spent Friday and Saturday playing in the pool, visiting parks, doing a bit of shopping, trying to find food to eat that was healthy and yet appealing to picky young children, and trying to sleep two to a bed in a hotel room with two kids who were full of excitement and wonder from visiting a new city. Needless to say I didn’t follow the typical strict pre-race diet and activity regimen of a wannabe-amateur-elite runner. No shakeout runs on Friday or Saturday, the last supper was spicy deluxe pad thai ordered to our hotel room. I did manage to get to bed at a decent time, because what else is there to do when you have two sleeping preschoolers in your hotel room?
I like this race in particular because it’s small enough and conveniently located that the logistics of getting to the race are very simple. It’s a 10 minute drive to the race from our hotel, and a two minute walk from the huge parking lot to the start of the race. Bag drop was unnecessary because I had my wife with me (who I bribed with a new Lululemon belt bag). Morning routine was wake up at 5:30, do a few stretches, quick shower, skip morning oatmeal and chocolate milk because still kinda full from last night’s dinner, grab a drive-thru coffee on the way to the race, eat a stroopwafel in the car, get to the race at 6:30, dump my stuff with my wife, give the kids a hug for good luck, skip pre-race warm up and instead just do a bit of dancing and jogging in place in the starter’s chute. They do the opening ceremony, count us down, and we’re off.

Race

Stryd gave me a power target of 315W which roughly translated to a 7:30/mile pace. I wanted to keep close to that pace for at least the first half because I got overly ambitious in Chicago and cooked myself in the first half and then paid for it later. A negative split was a bigger priority than a goal time. Once we got out of the chute and started to stretch out, I was pleased to find that 315W felt pretty relaxed and it actually took some effort to not speed up. The first few miles were a net downhill and I tend to not resist gravity and let the hill carry me, so I actually ended up going a bit faster than my pace and power targets, but no big deal. My breathing was relaxed and my legs felt strong.
It was around the second mile that I became aware of some rubbing on the back of my heel. The Hyperion Elites that I was wearing have a buttress on the inside of the heel that rubs on my Achilles tendon. In Chicago I finished the race with a couple bloody blisters on my heels but they didn’t bother me too much during the race. I meant to bring moleskin to protect my heels but forgot them, and I figured that in a half marathon it probably would only be about…half as bad as Chicago?...and I could live with it. But after the third mile I could feel my heel starting to get irritated and I had to make a decision: do I worry about this and adjust my stride or stop to try and adjust my shoe or sock somehow? Or do I just accept that I’ll have some blisters at the end of the race and deal with it after? I’ve never dealt with any serious injuries from running through a mild irritation that I deemed not serious, so I decided that I could live with the pain and went on.
It was at the end of mile 4 that my heel went from irritated to angry and I could tell a blister was forming. That was a little too soon for my liking and I decided to stop and tighten my shoe a bit. That only seemed to make it worse, so I stopped again to pull my socks up really tight. That didn’t help either. I stopped again to try tying my shoe looser? That seemed to relieve a bit of pressure and I managed to run for another mile and a half, at a faster pace now because I was losing time. Then I felt the blister on my left foot pop. That didn’t feel so good. Stopped again and loosened up all the laces and then adjusted them to redistribute the pressure on my foot. Ran for a bit longer but then the right heel started to hurt. Tried retying the right shoe. Limped along for a minute and then tried folding the socks back to double the padding around the blisters. That didn’t work. Then I felt the skin on my left foot actually tear and I knew there was a nice big chunk of raw exposed skin now being rubbed down by the back of my shoe, and every step felt like a combination of salt on an open wound and a butter knife being scraped over a sunburn. At that point I seriously considered just dropping out of the race, and if I had traveled to the race solo I probably would have thrown in the towel but I told my wife to be at the finish line at a certain time with my kids to cheer me on and I didn’t want them to miss me. So in one last effort to relieve the friction on my heel I stopped after the halfway turnaround and relaced both shoes with a heel lock. Both of the aglets (the plastic thingys on the end of the laces) popped off when I pulled the laces out of the eyelets to relace them and I struggled with sweat dripping in my eyes and shaky hands to push the soft laces through the tiny little eyelets on the shoes which took way longer than it should have. But after all that was said and done I stood up and ran a few strides and to my relief, while my ankles were both raw and bloody, the rubbing seemed to be gone.
Well, now I had some work to do. Due to all the stops, I was feeling fairly fresh despite the painful heels, and despite it all I had run the first half of the race in 50 minutes, which made a 1:39 pretty achievable provided no more shoe problems. I was feeling a sense of urgency (and also had a bit of frustrated energy to burn) so I gave myself permission to turn up the effort and try to catch some of the people that I was running with before I needed to deal with my shoes. The miles ticked away pretty seamlessly. The ankles didn’t seem to be getting any worse, and everything else was feeling fine. I started to pick off some of the runners I had passed earlier in the race. I crossed paths with a few runners I knew, which is a fun feature of this race being mostly a long out-and-back, you’ll meet people coming in the opposite direction for a good portion of the race.
The last couple of miles are a slight net uphill so it gets progressively more difficult at the end as you feel that elevation on tired legs. Despite that, I ran progressive negative splits from mile 9 through the finish. In the last 2 miles, I was matching paces with a younger guy who eventually sped up and pulled away, then in the last mile with another guy who was clearly trying to race me (as I subtly ratcheted up the pace trying to race him). In the last 400m we dropped any pretenses and gave it everything we had in an unspoken sprint to the finish. I’m pretty sure I was grinning in the last 100m as we weaved around some of the 10k walkers and dueled to the finish. He ended up pulling away and beating my by a couple of steps but that was the most fun part of the race, and we high fived in the finishing chute afterwards.

Post-race

Waiting for me at the finish line was my family, and let me tell you, having your kids cheer “yay Daddy!” makes it all worth it. We posed for some family pics and then grabbed some post race snacks with my 3 year old on my shoulder (she took my cheesy bread and ate it, but I kept the non-alcoholic craft beer). My four year old was concerned about the boo boos on my feet but I assured her that I was really tough and that they barely even hurt (I have a bloody red circle of raw skin about the size of a twoonie on one ankle) She told me I was really tough so that was a nice boost to the ego. Then we went back to the hotel for a shower, packed up our stuff and hopped in the van for the drive home.
I’m not sure what’s next for me. I’m not very keen at the idea of training for a marathon this summer, because I have a lot of baseball planned as well as family time. I might get back in the gym and do some more weight training and speed work and then maybe a low mileage training plan for another half in the fall and improve my time from this race. In any case I feel more energized and motivated and maybe I’m past my little burnout now. A race without a ton of expectations is a nice break from the constant PR and WMM qualifying grind I’ve been on for the last few years.
Made with a new race report generator created by herumph.

I sometimes take these delta 8 gummies to help with sleep, but I’ve only taken about half or less each time because they’re kinda strong. Tonight I had one and I’m about 2 hours or more into it and my stomach feels odd, but it started feeling odd once I laid down. I was worried that they were bad because I usually take a bite out of a gummy and put the rest back in the bag, but I had taken a bite out of all the full gummies already so I had to take a bite out of the ones that are already been bitten, will I be okay? I’m kinda worried that my saliva from a while back contaminated and made the gummy bad ? I probably sound so dumb but my stomach feels odd, I also ate a full meal at like 4:15 pm and it’s 11:40 where I’m at now, the last thing I ate was a few packs of peanut butter crackers before I took the gummy at like 9:40