It's like Tuesdays with Morrie without all the wisdom
I run
The Heat Hates Stupid People. So it Tried to Kill me.
11It’s time to flip my morning routine around. I can’t run in the 9:30am heat. I usually put laundry in the washer, drink my coffee, eat my breakfast, check my email, let the coffee go to work *cough*, then hang the laundry on the line, then at least 1 or 2 kids are up, so I feed them, and then I run. But now it’s hot and on today’s run, my fingers swelled up to look like 10 portly thumbs, and I was really thirsty and around mile 4 I felt chilly and I thought, “Huh, that doesn’t seem right.” And the heat melted my Vaseline barrier that I always make in order to keep the rivers of sweat out of my eyes. So rivers of sweat ran in my eyes. And have you ever tried to dry your eyes with a tech shirt? It doesn’t work. That material might be made for wicking sweat away from my body, but it isn’t made to mop up the buckets of stinging sweat that my head produces, thus the Vaseline barrier. It usually works like a charm, as you can see by this rough sketch:
See how the sweat runs into the barrier and goes around and down without stinging my eyes? It’s lovely. See my big smile?
But today, The Heat wanted to punish me so this happened:
See my frown? That means I was sad. The Heat made me sad when it tried to kill me.
I Should Just Play Dodgeball Instead
9June 23, 2009
I’ve been trying to work on my running speed without much progress. Every weekend a group of menopausal women passes me going super fast. I know they’re menopausal because I can hear them laughing and chatting about vaginal dryness and hot flashes from the time they’re a quarter mile behind me until they’re a quarter mile ahead of me. They zoom past, yukking it up and they’re not even short of breath. And they’re old. I want to be like that when I’m old so I’m working on it. I could just run later in the day on the weekends so I won’t run into them anymore, but it’s getting kind of hot out now and sometimes I think the heat might make me die. My goal is to at least quicken my pace to the point where it takes them longer to pass me and I keep them in my line of vision for longer before they disappear on the horizon. It’s a lofty goal, believe me.
I do well on my “speed work” days, but then on my regular runs, I go back to slow. I don’t know how to get the feel of a certain pace, so I just go at a pace that doesn’t hurt very badly. When I started running a few years ago, I used to listen to music, but then I found that once I listened to certain music while running, it was impossible for me to listen to it in real life. It made me feel weird so I started listening to a combination of audio books, “This American Life,” “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me,” “The Moth,” and “RadioLab.” And my speed has suffered. I really get into the stories and I find myself pretty much just shuffling my feet with my mouth hanging open from time to time. It’s a wonder that I don’t veer off the trail and run into a tree every now and then.
But Dawn introduced me to these podcasts that are organized by beats per minute, so all I had to do is figure out what BPM will keep me at the pace I want. And it’s all house music or club music or whatever the kids are calling it these days. I don’t listen to that in real life, so it doesn’t ruin any music for me! And it doesn’t have words, so I don’t get caught up in the story! I do sometimes get distracted, “Is that a cat yelling? I wonder if that’s a foley artist effect or if it’s somebody’s cat? What did they do to get the cat to make that sound? I wonder if they gave it some kind of designer club drug. I wonder what the new designer club drugs are called these days. ‘Ecstasy’ was just about the best drug name ever. If I hadn’t been afraid of man-made drugs, I totally would have taken something called ‘ecstasy.’ That’s just good marketing.” And sometimes,, because it’s club music, I think about Bryan’s former co-worker in Michigan who showed up to work one day with a tether bracelet on her ankle. Bryan asked her what she did to deserve that and, with complete nonchalance, she said, “Shot up a club.” (He didn’t press for details. Can you believe that?) And then I snap out of it and find myself off beat (I like to keep the beat with my right foot), so then I do a little stutter step to get back on beat, which means one day I will probably fall down and take a stick to the eye, but for now it’s working.
Well Now I Have to Run Another One
4I know I said I would never run another half marathon, but I lied. I needed a goal, so I tricked a couple of cousins and my sister-in-law into running the Capital City half with me so I couldn’t back out. I didn’t back out and I felt 100% better before, during, and after this one than I did the first time around. Probably because I ran this one much slower than the first one, although my training for this one led me to believe I would run it faster than the first one. I don’t know what went wrong, but I do know it’s hard for me to push myself. It was clear around mile 3 that I was way off my goal pace, but I just kind of shrugged and sighed and kept on running slowly. I don’t have that drive that would enable me to sacrifice my comfort in order to meet a goal. I like to be comfortable. But I’m going to try to be goal-oriented next time. Unless it hurts too much. I can handle the emotional pain of not meeting my goal much better than I can handle the physical pain of, well, meeting my goal.
Anyway, WE FRICKIN’ DID IT!
That’s us immediately post-race: Jenna, me, Tracy, and Mandy.
We spent the rest of the day with lots of beer and ibuprofen:
And I have to just say right here how lovely my husband was all weekend. He cleaned for us, he fetched for us, he took care of the children, he let me nap the day away when I finally came down off of my endorphin high on Sunday. He was just all-around lovely and he helped make the weekend (my birthday weekend, by the way. I’m 34 today!) extra special. And we’re doing it again in October so my sister can join in.
Now I have to go enjoy my birthday. Bryan took the day off work in order to pamper me, so I guess I should let him rub my feet or something. *sigh*
Two More Days Until I Can Stop Hating Christmas Music
7
I’m looking forward to Thanksgiving for lots of reasons, but my number one happy reason is because, after it’s all over, then I can stop screaming obscenities at my car radio every time I inadvertently come across one of the stations that plays all Christmas music, all the time. It started on November 1st and I’m too lazy to re-set my pre-sets, so I keep stumbling upon effing Christmas music. Since the day after Halloween. It’s not right. And I will stab somebody. I know I should be thinking about effing Christmas. I know I have to buy people stuff. I know, I know, I know. I don’t need stupid songs to remind me. Kids Know Stuff is backfiring for me because, while I’m getting good gift ideas for my kids, my kids already have the stuff because they had to review it. I should’ve thought this through a little better. It works out well for you, though, because you could win a bunch of cool DVDs from my kids. You’re so selfish. I would try to win them, too, but my kids already have them. I can’t even re-wrap them for Christmas because that might be a touch meaner than usual.
This Thanksgiving, I’ll be running the Turkey Trot 5-miler for the 3rd year in a row. This year is different, though, because Mechelle won’t be here (boo!), and my husband is running it with me (yay!) Bryan is a natural sprinter; he does not “try to kill himself” by running more than a few miles at a time at super-sonic speed. The one time he tried to run with me, he had to shorten up his stride so much in order to stay slow that he got injured. I’m slow and short, with no competitive edge, enabling me to run long(ish) distances without ever having a heart attack. He’s fast, tall, competitive, and generally has ants in his pants, so it’s hard for him to pace himself. This should be interesting. The best part is, I don’t have to use my endorphins as energy for cooking Thanksgiving dinner because Kristen is doing that! Isn’t she sweet? That means I’ll be able to use that energy high for things like drinking. And pouring drinks. Should be fun. Also, Kristen‘s husband and son are running with Bryan and me. I hope they remember to wait for me when it’s over. And I hope Bryan doesn’t weep because he doesn’t come in first. The last time he ran races regularly, he usually came in first and colleges watched him and sent him letters promising money to him for the pleasure of enjoying his long, lean legs and his powerful stride. Or something like that.
That’s him winning. *sigh*
Miles and Miles of Smothers Brothers
3I’ve been listening to the Smothers Brothers on my runs lately. They give new meaning to the phrase “fun run.” I love them. I giggle. And I love running in the fall. When it’s cold enough that you need gloves at first, but then you can take them off after a little while? That’s the best time of year. And my forehead sweat has stopped blinding me by pouring into my eyes. Thank you, cool weather. In the summer, if I forget to make a little barrier with various petroleum-based products then I go blind with my drippy, drippy sweat. Have you ever tried to dry your eyes with a tech shirt? It’s not comfy. It’s supposed to wick sweat away, but I guess that doesn’t mean you can use it for a towel.
Ok, so I’m pimping Kids Know Stuff again because we’re going to be doing lots of giveaways over the next couple of months and I love you guys and I want you to win some stuff so you don’t have to buy stuff for the holidays. We’re running a two-fer right now even! Dawn made the site all gorgeous. Thanks Dawn! (Dawn from Open Book Strategies, not Dawn from This Woman’s Work. Wait, maybe they’re the same person. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen them in the same room together even though I’m good friends with both of them. And they both have the same last name. Weird. Must look into that.) Anyway, go look at what Dawn can do. And then bow to her.
