frigid waters

We had guests this past weekend, so it was busy busy busy.  Saturday morning I knew we were going to go to breakfast and I woke up starving… at 6 a.m.  So I didn’t run, I just crossed my toes and hoped I’d find time later in the day.  Finally ate an egg white omelet around 10:30 a.m.  and then chili at 1.  and half of a hot fudge sundae around 1:30.  and finally a Red Robin Salad at 5 p.m.  A good day of eating relatively healthy left me feeling energized rather than heavy.  So I eventually made it outside around 8 p.m for a 6 miler.   Snow covered the ground and made everything a little uneven and fun.  Then shit got real.  Sorta.  A white Grand Prix started creepin up on me.  I thought it might be someone being extra cautious in the snow.  Until they went all fast and furious and hit the gas.  Took off and then made a sudden turn in the school parking lot for a couple donuts.  Then they started creepin on me again.  I took off beyond a locked gate in the parking lot and fled my potential captors.  Actually I’m thinking Grand Prix and parking lot donuts equal teenagers.  Those darn teenagers *shakes fist*

Next morning, same thing.  I woke up starving before 6 but had to wait til almost 11 for breakfast.  Had another omelet that was stuffed to the brim with spinach.  Like way too much spinach.  I started to gag on it and finally gave up.  I was about to go all Popeye roid rage on our waitress.  After breakfast, our guests left, so I got ready for my long run.  Snow melted into slush by Sunday.  No matter.  I didn’t want to run the stretch out of town because it’s not plowed or salted, so I ended up zig zagging my way through town.  Ran for about 85 minutes total.  My groin was bugging me most of the way but I’m hoping my chiro appointment on Monday helped fix that problem.

Lately people have been asking me if I do triathlons.  I would love to do a triathlon.  I would also love to not drown.  I took swimming lessons for maybe 3 years?  I was the girl that walked to the end of the diving board and then just stood there shivering for about 5 minutes before I turned around and walked off.  I know enough so that if I ever happen to fall into the deep end of a pool, I could get to the surface and hopefully paddle my way to the side.  Isn’t that sort of an instinctual motion though?  In second grade I went to my frenemy’s pool party at her cousin’s house.  She was chiding me for not jumping off the board.  I wasn’t stupid.  I knew there was no lifeguard to save my drowning ass.  Finally, I threw an inflatable in the middle of the pool and jumped in towards it.  and this bitch grabs it and swims away.  I’m underwater, can’t see without my nerd glasses, can barely swim and I start to panic.  I remember blindly flailing my arms around and finally grasping the bottom of the ladder.  I climb back up expecting everyone to be concerned, but no.  No one even noticed.

My cousin used to babysit us in the summers while my mom worked.  She was super cliche high school cheerleader who wanted a perfect tan.  So she dragged us to the pool every other day.  I would cry about it but my sisters were stoked.  Most of the time I ended up reading on a towel and eating burnt microwaved pizza from the concession stand.  I used to swim in the shallow end for a half hour but then I’d end up on my towel shivering every time the sun went behind the clouds.  Oh memories.

 

Judge Tread

Two days on Judge Tread.  Woke up at 5 a.m. and hopped on to run during reruns of Married with Children followed by Home Improvement.    Sigh…I really need to get a power strip so I can hook up the PS3.  I also listen to my iPod, which helps distract me from the mess of 90s hair and laugh tracks.

I almost always run with music.  About 50% of the time I don’t even notice it.  It’s just background noise to my random thoughts.  My thoughts are of the mundane variety… what does Jonathan Taylor Thomas look like now?  Wasn’t Tim Allen a coke head?  or when I’m running outside- Should I turn here or at the next block?  Didn’t the guy that lived there drop dead?

I don’t know why I decided that 6 miles was my standard treadmill run.  But I did.  So two days of running 6.25 miles in around 48-50 minutes.  Tomorrow may be the same.  Perhaps I should power strip shop tonight.

Day of unrest

My long run for last week ended up being on Sunday of this week.  A slight technicality.  I let RK sleep in and didn’t take off until about 9:45.  It was windy again but at least I expected it.  Did a loop in town and then ran out north knowing that the strong wind was at my back.  Ran maybe 1.5 miles out of town before I turned back to face the wind.  At least it wasn’t a constant wind, just a few nasty gusts every now and again.  Went back into town and did the same loop in reverse.  I must have run negative splits because I still had some time to kill when I was back home.  Did another loop around a few blocks and wrapped it up with some jumping jacks in my driveway.  I’m sure the neighbors think I’m loony, but I do it after almost every run.

Today is a rest day.  I was waffling on the idea, as I always do, and finally leaned toward taking it today instead of tomorrow. Barring serious illness or alarm clock sorcery, I will be running tomorrow.  Discipline has never been an issue for me.

Dropped Red off at daycare before work.  I always feel guilty when I do.  It’s not the same kind of guilt most moms have, feeling guilty about having to work and leave the kid with someone else.  It’s feeling bad for the daycare workers.  I just hand over my kid and say, she’s fussy today, I’m glad YOU get to deal with it.  They generally don’t tell me when she’s been a terror.  They will say nice things like oh she has been fine since 3 o clock.  And then I think, just since 3 oclock?  So how was she the rest of the day?  Screaming in your face since 9?  Are you going to cry tears of relief when I leave?

Being a daycare worker would be one of the WORST jobs I can think of.  Especially working in the baby room.  I think they call it the Infant Avenue or Baby Boulevard, something cutesy like that.  I wonder if that is where all the workers start and it’s just a rite of passage they have to muddle through.  Who wants to change dirty diapers and deal with colicky babies?  Thank God Red isn’t colicky.  I imagine the parents of such a baby show up and apologize… I’m so sorry you have listen to this all day long, but better you than me, eh?  No one could pay me enough money to care for their crying kid, especially one to whom I am not related.  I’d stick it in a swing and ignore it all day then go home and have my tubes tied.

Lazy daisy

Friday was a much needed day off from work.  I was able to sleep in until almost 8 a.m. after a brief feeding at 5:30.  I slept in my sports bra and had every intention of waking up and hitting the treadmill, but I got distracted.  Red was up and needed to be fed again.  My stomach was rumbling.  I filled it with food and I simply cannot run on a full stomach.  So I decided to go to Target instead.  The nice thing about winter is that wearing many layers of clothes hides my sports bra uniboob.

I had no reason to go to Target so I had to invent one.  I neeeed………..  finally I remembered that they have baby rice cereal…I needed baby rice cereal!  The Dollar General 2 blocks away sells it, but the Target kind has DHA and probiotics in it!  Yes, that is a valid reason to go Target when it’s 15 degrees outside.  It’s all about Red’s brain and belly.

Once there, I realized I had other important items to look for.  RK and I are on a neverending quest for the newest and coolest foods.  The latest quest is for Frosted Toast Crunch and Birthday Cake Oreos.  Target had neither.  Wal-Mart always seems to have such novel foods, but I couldn’t subject myself to that kind of torture.  We had just gone there this summer on our quest for Ben and Jerry’s latest flavor and Triple Double Oreos.  Six months later and my white trash tank is still on empty.  I have to build up a couple more months of trash tolerance before I can go again.

I wandered over to the clothes section and found some khaki cargos on sale for $11.  They were exactly like my brown cargos I bought in September but I remembered  RK described them as Lesbian-ish.  So pass on those.  Headed over to the baby section looking for a Bumbo.  I recently read about babies being injured by falling out of them, but I decided to assume that their parents were just stupid and/or ignorant, until I brought it home and Red nearly flipped over the back of it.  She also looks incredibly creepy in it because her body isn’t used to sitting.  She just kind of slumps over and writhes her hands together in a maniacal fashion.

I was able to squeeze in a treadmill run around 2 p.m.  Ran 6.2 miles in 48 minutes while watching Everybody Loves Raymond. Was aiming for an even quarter but Red started screeching.

Winter weather

Yesterday was 50 degrees and sunny.  It was also my ‘rest day.’

Today I choked on spit and smeared snot across my face as I ran against snow and 20 mile per hour winds.

In my defense, I did not know the weather was THAT bad.  I got a wireless weather station for the specific purpose of using it to determine “outside runnability.”  But that station is sitting in it’s box on the porch because I was too busy to figure it out.  By busy, I mean lazy.  Instead, I looked outside and thought “oh!!! First snow first snow!”  I love running in the snow.

Baby was sleeping soundly, so I slipped on some fleece pants  and my winter jogging jacket that still smells like last year’s sweat, and headed out.  I ran south, then east, feeling the chill only in my Nike Free clad feet.  Ran north to the main road, turned west and was immediately slapped in the face by old man winter.  I guess I didn’t realize he had been slapping my ass for the past 20 minutes.

It was only about 10 minutes back to my house, so I labored on.  The wind kept taking my breath away, but I tried to look cool as I cruised by McDonald’s so the dude getting the buy-one-get-one-free McMuffins would think i was badass and not bat ass crazy.  When I reached the bike trail, I felt pretty good and not ready to quit, so I headed south again and figured I would just run north-south to avoid the wind. Problem solved.

Or so I thought.  I suddenly couldn’t open my left eye.  Realizing it had been frozen shut, I shook off my adorable-but -not-terribly-useful cupcake mittens and picked the ice crystals off my lashes.

 

Headed north to home and waved to my corgi who waited in the window.  Ended up running for 46 and a half minutes.  I was surely a sight for sore eyes, a trail of snot ran down my nose and took a left at my mouth.  I had no idea my nose was even running.   Not sure of the distance because, like my weather station, my Garmin sits unused in a box.  I did charge it once, but apparently it lost the charge because when I tried to run with it, it was dead.

The weather is the topic of conversation today.  Actually, that’s the topic everyday in the Midwest.  What do people small talk about in the South?  Here, people bitch about the snow and about how no one remembers how to drive in it.  Someone has got to remember.  I remember.  I remember how to use it as an excuse for being late to work.  But really I was late because I wanted a spoonful of peanut butter before I left the house.

Tomorrow’s high is 20, so I’m penciling in  a treadmill run.  Hopefully some long forgotten and surprisingly funny Home Improvement episode will be on, but I seem to remember them all.