How long has it been since you've played around?

A Rich man shipwrecked his yacht on a small desert isle,  He spent many years waiting for rescue, but to no avail.

One day, a beautiful woman, dressed in a wetsuit, googles, snorkel and fins, comes out of the surf, and approaches the man.

He exclaims that it has been many years since he has seen anyone, and is so happy to have a human conversation.  She asks "How long has it been since you have had a drink of scotch?", he answers "many", and she proceeds to pull out a flask of scotch from somewhere in her wetsuit and offers it to him.

"This is absolutely amazing" he says, and she asks "How long since you have had a cigar?", and after a slight pause, pulls out a cigar case, cuts and lights the cigar and hands it over to him.

"Outstanding" he smiles, she sways her hips and bats her eyelashes, and asks "How long since you've played around?" and smiles seductively...

"Good Lord" he exclaims, "Don't tell me you have a set of golf clubs in there!'

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The joke of the long run.  Comedy requires that you throw a lot out there, and sometimes something works.   And if I am still telling jokes, I am still having fun.  I often seriously collect a joke list for races, just so I can remember them when it comes time to tell one at the 32k mark.

Had a friend catch up to me around 25k mark of the race, I was very happy to see him, and told a few jokes :-)  My friend casually mentions to his pacing partner "If we hang with him, he will keep telling jokes", and they smiled and dropped me.  Good times....

90% of the long run is physical.  The other half is mental.  And one thing that we spent a lot of time talking about was mental strategies to get through the long run, get through the race.  Standard form checklists, like pull your belly button to your spine, squeeze that quarter, maintain your cadence, shoulders back, head high, proud to be a runner.

We also finding your way, your way to keep pushing.  Pain is inevitable, but the suffering is optional.  Identifying what is pain of effort, and what is pain of injury. This makes it sounds like our run was a sufferfest, but it was not that, just the pain of effort, and the longest run of the year so far.