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| Zomg that shirt. And shorts. Oh the 90s. |
As you can see from this pic of me at the end of yesterday's run, I still have the same taste for obnoxious multi-colored prints:
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| Note obnoxious print on shorts and shoes please. |
It's good to know that my taste in clothes hasn't changed that much in over 20 years...but my desire to actually get off my arse and exercise has. Well, now that I'm in my 40s I pretty much have no choice but to get up and do something lest I turn into a junk-food eating blob. And get up and do something I did yesterday, with that something being a 19-mile run. My long runs usually have something eventful happen, and yesterday's was no exception. Let me do a quick list of those events for you, because lists are what I live for these days:
Event #1: I was exhausted even before I began. OK, not really an event, but this past week was a nutty week for me at work, getting there super early and leaving super late each day (the school year is ramping back up for us educators). I went home on Friday and feel asleep at 7 PM, not waking up until 5 AM the next morning when a dog slapped me in the face as a proof of life check. ("Is she still alive? Someone slap the woman; we have to go outside!") And even after I woke up I was still exhausted...so that meant I dawdled around the house a lot before finally getting ready for the run. This also meant I left a lot later than I should have, meaning I would be ending the run in hotter weather. The things I do to sabotage my own runs, I tell you.
Event #2: Dodging cyclists at every turn. Now, please remember that I love cycling. I really, really do. But it seemed like I kept running into every group ride being had in the area yesterday. Some groups were awesome, letting large dog and I pass, but other cycling herds just plowed on through, causing Simon and I to head into the ditch for our own safety. One time a group came over a blind hill and I seriously thought we were going to be bicycling roadkill. At least I can't say the run was boring.
Event #3: Mother Nature calling me incessantly. So if you read this blog regularly you know that Mother Nature and I have a love/hate relationship during runs. Specifically, she loves to call me at inconvenient times during the run and I hate to answer...but I have to. Yesterday was no different, and I had to duck into an abandoned field as well as find a nice spot in some really tall grass on the edge of a cornfield to take the calls. I really have to review my eating plan to see if I can permanently block her calls during runs.
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| Me staring down Mother Nature. And losing. |
Event #4: Mother Nature made a fool out of me. As I was entering the early double-digits of my miles, I kept noticing that the hordes of cyclists passing me from behind kept chuckling as they went by. I shrugged it off, because I was really more focused on getting the run done through the heat of the day that had started to set in. As I was chugging down a welcome long downhill in the middle of mile 15, I felt something chafing me along let left side of my back. When I reached back to re-adjust my clothing and see what was chafing me, I felt something sticking out of the back of my shorts (!). I stopped to take a look, and realized I had streams of long grass hanging out the back of my shorts, with the ends inside chafing me like a sunofayouknowwhat. I must have accidentally snagged them while I was answering Mother Nature on the edge of that cornfield, therefore enabling all of those cyclists to have a good laugh this morning at my grassy tail as they rode by. Glad I could add a little comic relief to their rides (but not glad about the chafing that I gave to myself - OUCH).
Event #5: Body parts making strange noises. From mile 11 on I kept hearing a weird suction-y type noise, and I kept thinking someone was coming up behind me. That is, until I realized the noise was coming from the inside of my sports bra now that it was soaked in sweat and could hold no more (sweat, that is). That bra got retired to the trash can after this run--FYI.
Event #6: Holy hilly hills. As per usual, I ran lots of hilly hills for 19 miles. The only thing that gets me through this kind of torture is the fact that I do loops around my house, with a lot of looped out-and-backs of 3 miles or so...and instead of thinking about miles left I think about loops left, which is usually a much lower number that my brain can deal with without sobbing uncontrollably on the inside.
Event #7: Running 19 miles faster than the pace indicated on the training plan. At some point during hot runs my subsconscious wants the suffering to be done so it makes me run faster...I finished a full 10 seconds faster per mile than I should have. Whoops.
After dealing with the hills and the grass in my shorts and Mother Nature for 19 hot miles (the first nine with large dog), one good decision I made was to leave a cold bottle of water in the shade that is my mailbox. Chugging that thing at the end of the run was like drinking unicorn tears. One other bad decision I made was sitting in a deck chair while I took the dogs out afterwards...it took a while to figure out how to get out of that chair after the run I just had.
But you'll be glad to know I did make it inside and to the ice bath, where I got judgy looks from cats the whole time, making for the perfect end to a long run. Not really.
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| Hyooman you IDIOT sitting in ICE *judgeraysfromeyes* |
Speaking of ending, this post is over now. Check out the upcoming workouts below.
Upcoming workouts: Today--lifting heavy things. Tomorrow - only 10 miles of speed work. Only.
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