I can't run a marathon, but....

Today I had one of the funniest class periods I've EVER had in my, well, five years of teaching. It started when in my 7th grade French class I told them that we were going to try something new, and I called it "Mega Super Francais." The concept was that as an entire class, I was going to time us and see how long we could make it without a word in English. Even if we needed the definition of something, we'd spell it out in French. So, we started.
I was introducing adjectives today and how to describe a person. So I start out by giving them a list of the words in French and then I basically act out or describe the definitions in simple French. It's fun to act, I get to make a fool out of myself, and it's the best way I've found to introduce vocabulary where it's not just them copying down a list for no reason (actually I didn't look hard to find it, I just copied exactly what Peg did when I watched her teach).
So, they were good sports and they were seriously trying hard. This is such a funny class and we have a great bond-and of course they found delight in using these new adjectives to make fun of ME! :) So, they were basically calling me old-only they did it in the funniest way. I said something along the lines of "Mrs. Wopat isn't old, right?" and I got answers in the chorus of "oui, madame est agee" or "ca va pas madame!". But a girl yells out "trente-et-un!" which made me laugh because I've warned them about guessing my age in the decade ABOVE what I really am. So I laughed and someone yelled, "Non! Cent!" which is great because we JUST learned numbers 60-100. Then, essentially for the next few minutes we stayed all in French, just joking with each other (at one point, even about my iq:).
I'm not sure if you're not a French teacher you can explain the feeling that you get from lasting 16 minutes and 25 seconds without one single word of English (Although the word that ended it all was Hobo). After it was over we all were looking around, smiling and one girl raised her hand and said, "Puis-je parler en anglais? It is SO much more fun to speak all in French." And she was sincere. And this made me want to run to her and hug her and it made me feel like I'd imagine it feels to finish a marathon. I think it's what it feels like to know that you have actually succeeded. And I didn't care what happened for the rest of the day because it was SO amazing. Such a high. And that is really hard to explain-but it's the ONLY reason I think I can last as a teacher even for the rest of the year.