Tuesdays on the Run hosted by No-Guilt Life, MCM Momma, and Marcia’s Healthy Slice is all about race dreams today. Stop on by the LinkUp and read everyone’s crazy race dreams. I have very vivid dreams, many of which are long dystopian sagas that if I bothered to write down might become the next Twilight (but better). While I don’t have stress dreams the night, or week, before a race, there is one race dream I have had multiple times over the last couple of years, always slightly different, but generally follows the same story line. The timing of it doesn’t fall particularly close to any race or even during a tough training period. Perhaps it has to do with my choice of varietal with dinner, who knows?

The general theme of the dream involves getting lost during a marathon, but I don’t just make a wrong turn and have trouble finding my way back to the course, because well that wouldn’t be my imagination. This usually takes place in a city, although once it did start in a secluded area by the ocean and I ended up in the city.

The race has two laps, very long laps, and if I stay asleep long enough to make the second lap, I get lost in a completely different way the second time. I have never made it to the finish line. The dream almost always involves having to take the subway as part of the race. Once I did make it to the subway to the finish line. The train line ran across a gap between two mountain peaks basically, but the train got stuck halfway there and we have to climb out of the train and walk the tracks to the finish. That is where I woke up.

The last time I had the dream, one of the two bridges on the course was out and you had to take a subway to bypass the broken bridge. Except I got off on the wrong subway stop and had to find my way to the second bridge. I ran up what I thought was an onramp to the race course but ended up on the other side of the bridge, which I thought would be okay, since I could see the runners across the way. Separating the course from my road were huge trusses and wires, plenty of open space–the expanse was too large to jump, which I did contemplate. Oh, and my side of the bridge was under construction, of course. Running to the end of my road, instead of turning back, I decided to climb the bridge.

In real life, I am sort of scared of heights so climbing a bridge would probably not work for me, but you can do it in Sydney! www.bridgeclimb.com

So up the bridge I went from gantry to pylon, climbing up, up, up. Except the course veered down and I lost sight of the runners. So here I was on top of a bridge, and couldn’t see the course anymore. At this point, having lost at least three hours climbing a bridge, I finally decided to turn back and try to find the correct onramp to the course. Unfortunately, just as I found the correct onramp, saw other runners (who tell me they are already on their second lap), and got my groove back, a dog jumped on my face and I woke up.

Another time, part of the course was around my elementary school and the gate I tried to get into was locked so I had to bypass through the park. Luckily finding the subway wasn’t difficult and I was able to catch up to everyone else. Except while we were busy running around my elementary school, some Godzilla like creature had attacked the city and we had to detour to the finish line. That’s right, Godzilla attacks the city and us racers only worry about finishing the race. Was the finish line still standing? I’ll never know because I woke up while climbing over a car.

Perhaps, I really just want to run NYC Marathon. Or perhaps I think there should be a race that requires a subway ride for three of the 50 miles, who knows? Perhaps, I just interjected running into my already crazy dreams. Really, I think my dreams are telling me all this running is futile.

So that’s my race dream. What’s yours?