Inane Chatter

So…you know how the other week I was over the moon about running?  How I ran my race, and I ran faster than I expected, and I felt really good?  Well.  In the two weeks immediately following that race, I ran a total of 3 miles.  Weird schedule, too many crazy-early mornings – oh, I’ve got plenty of excuses.  But, as John so kindly reminded me this morning, you lose your conditioning a hell of a lot faster than you gained it.  So this morning I ran four miles.  I’ve still got it.  And I don’t want to lose it.  I don’t know if I could jump right in and run ten again, but I’m aiming for 7 or 8 this weekend.  That’s doable, right?

The Bloggess (who you should really be reading regularly because oh my god Snuffleupagus) pins some hilarious and beautiful things on her pinterest page.  You should check in on that every once in a while, too.

I just turned in my third calculus quiz of the semester and I have to take the midterm before next Wednesday.  So I’m going to watch some TV because the band is rehearsing in the basement and who can study through that?

I did it.  I ran the Army Ten-Miler, and I did it 13 minutes faster than any of my workouts.  And it hurt like hell.  The day was just shy of perfect.  The temperatures were low and it wasn’t raining, but the sun was shining and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.  A cloudy day would have kept us cooler AND probably not given me a sunburn.  (I wore sunblock.  On my face.  I didn’t consider the back of my neck ’cause it’s usually covered with hair.)  And speaking of hair, I had no hair disasters!  Yay!  Over the last few weeks, my braids have come out of the bun repeatedly, come loose altogether (the bottom hair bands lost forever) twice, and generally behaved like Houdini getting out of a straitjacket.  This morning, though, my braid felt secure in its bun and it didn’t even jiggle.  It came down when I took it down, approximately 8 hours after I put it up.  Good bun.  Good braid.  Good me!  Practice works!  (I’ve been wearing my hair in a braid at every opportunity lately.)

So John and I got up at 5:15 yesterday morning, took care of the dogs, ate some toast, and headed to the Pentagon.  We’d been debating the metro vs parking issue for weeks, but when I heard that there’s only bus service between two of the stations on the line nearest us and we’d have to drive most of the way in just to find a station with uninterrupted service to the Pentagon, I convinced John that parking at Pentagon City would be easier.  Less stressful.  He wasn’t hard to convince.  We got to the parking garage right at 7, just as planned, and joined the mobs of runners trying to get to the port-a-potties near the starting line.  30,000-ish runners = long lines for the bathroom.  EVERYone has to go.  Almost everyone.  I’ll come back to that.

John and I were in different starting waves, so we split up to wait in our own personal crowds.  Eventually (couldn’t tell you if the race started on time, but I can tell you we waited and waited and waited and waited….), my crowd started shuffling towards the start we couldn’t see.  We must have been half a mile away, and we were packed in.  A guy behind me started mooing.  He switched to baaing when we stopped laughing at the moos.

John ran this race 5 years ago with a goal of finishing in 1 hour, 40 minutes (10 10-minute miles).  He said people were packed so close in at the beginning that his first mile took him 13 minutes or something crazy like that.  He made up the time later on and finished EXACTLY when he’d planned.  Magic.  I wasn’t counting on magic, so the possibility of a really slow first mile was pretty scary to me.  Luckily, my pack spread out pretty quickly once we finally got across the starting line, so it wasn’t really an issue.  The main race clock (and the timers at the mile markers) were set to the actual race start (which was about 20 minutes before I started), so I relied on my own watch to track my time, starting the timer as I passed under the yellow and black balloons.  (The Army needs to get better colors – yellow (or gold – whatever) and black make for some seriously ugly balloons.) Once I got past the first mile and realized I wasn’t going to have any crowd-related pacing problems, I let go of the what-if-I-don’t-make-it-through-five-miles-fast-enough-and-they-don’t-let-me-finish anxiety and concentrated on moving.  On concentrating.  On keeping my legs churning and my feet landing mid-foot or further forward (my right heel was giving me some trouble).  And then I got the 3-mile mark and found I was averaging well under 11-minute miles.  And then I got to five miles and saw that my average pace was 10:12.  Too fast!  So I slowed down for the last five miles, knowing I was going to be paying for the faster start later.

I did.  I still am.  But it’s a good hurt.  I worked hard for this hurt.  But I’d like it to stop now.  The second half of the race is a blur of bright sunshine and cowbell.  (LOTS of spectators had cowbells.)  I remember thinking the 14th Street Bridge would never end.  And I remember wondering whose bright idea it was to put three (four?) hills in the last two miles.  And then I saw Amanda and Greg and Alex near the finish (thanks for cheering me on, guys!) and then I could see the finish and then I smiled and then it was over.  And then we (John was waiting for me) came to almost a complete halt in a sea of people all struggling to get water (John had some for me because he’s wonderful.  And fast.) and get out and sit down.  For a while it hurt more to be standing still than it had when I was still running.  And we were like a mile from the car.  So we got our bananas and muffins and water and trudged all the way back to the mall parking garage.  When we finally got home (after a ridiculous search for a breakfast place – we at Anthony’s in Falls Church.  French toast!  Exactly right.), we put aside all plans to actually get much thesis and calculus work done, showered, and collapsed on the couch for some well-deserved TV.

It was fun.  No – it was painful and I was afraid it would never end.  But I would do it again.  I don’t want it to be so hard.  If I keep doing it, it’ll get easier.  If I keep repeating that, it might come true.

Moment of truth.  I’m going to check the official results.  Before I do, did I tell you that John finished a full 10 minutes faster than the last time he ran this race?  Because he’s cool.

Okay – my official time was 1:48:47.  (Only one second off what my watch said.  Look at me!  I know how to work a stopwatch!)  I beat my 2-hour expectations by a substantial margin and only missed John’s first time by just under 9 minutes.  Maybe next time. 

Now I’m going to take more ibuprofen and go back to bed.  Lots more ibuprofen.

Right, I said I’d come back to the bathroom thing (many moons and paragraphs ago).  Yeah, the race had only barely started when, by the dozens, guys started hopping the guardrail on Route 110 and sprinting for the treeline to pee.  It was hilarious and a little disconcerting.  Was it planned?  Is that the best place?  Did they pass the word around?  Are these the guys who didn’t want to wait in the long port-a-potty lines?  Or just the ones who drank another liter of water while waiting for the race to start?  I mean, I have to go practically once an hour, more when I’m drinking lots of water, and yet I managed to plan ahead so that my last chance before the race started was enough to get me all the way home, almost six hours later.  Which, now that I think about it, pretty much means I was dehydrated.  Or a crazy-efficient sweater.  Sweat-er.  One who sweats.  Not the cable-knit kind.

That’s enough.  Go to bed already.

John and I drove back into DC today to pick up our race packets for tomorrow’s race.  (The Army Ten-Miler is tomorrow, by the way.  Have I mentioned that?  Talked about it much?  Nah, certainly not on those days I actually ran 10 miles.  This is probably coming as a complete surprise to you guys.  Because you know how much I don’t like to talk about what’s going on with me.)  For some reason (to do with costs, I’m sure), they refuse to mail the packets out ahead of time (seriously, just charge us all an extra few bucks and mail them the week before – we’re paying a ton to register anyway), so everyone has to come into town on the Friday or Saturday before the race to check in and pick them up.  It’s where we get our race bibs (and activate them) and our t-shirts, and it gives a ton of vendors the opportunity to sell lots of over-priced stuff (marked on sale, but not really) to over-excited runners.  This year (maybe every year, but it’s my first year, so what do I know?), packet pick-up was at the DC Armory.  Not an easy place to get to, unless you’re going by metro, but unless you live near the metro already or are staying in a hotel for the weekend, you’re probably not going by metro.  Actually, it’s not that hard to get to, but for once in my life, I didn’t look at a map first.  I relied on my phone’s Google navigation with GPS.  So we went the long way around.  Through not-great neighborhoods.  Listening to my phone telling us to make impossible left turns and then re-route us through worse areas to correct the mistake I made of not turning left onto a road with three lanes of traffic that didn’t go in that direction.  Silly me.  Our way back out was MUCH easier and is how we should have gotten there in the first place.  Thankfully, the race itself does not start at the DC Armory and does not require us to go anywhere near it, either by car or on foot.

If you’re local and you want to go into DC early tomorrow morning (it’s going to be a BEAUTIFUL day) and cheer on a shitload of runners while enjoying the monuments, well, that would be cool.    The course map is on the website (linked above) so you can find a good place to watch (there are restrictions on what you can bring to the finish area, but you don’t have to watch from there – anywhere along the mall on the Independence side would be a good spot) if you’re coming.  I’ll be wearing blue shorts and a navy blue tank top if you want to keep an eye out.  Purple race bib.  I expect it to take me about two hours (because I am SLOW) and I’m in the third wave (starts at 8:15), so calculate accordingly if you’re looking for me at a certain mile-marker.  I’m hoping adrenaline will help my pace, but I mostly just care about not getting directed straight to the finish line (and being unable to finish the race) if I don’t make it to the 5-mile mark by 9:35.  I say I’m worried about that, but I’ve done it enough times now that I’m about as certain as I can be that I’ll beat that particular deadline by at least 20 minutes.  The five miles after that will be the hard ones.

With that, I’m going to try not to think too hard about it anymore tonight.  John and I are going to pick up dinner (spaghetti) and settle in and watch Chariots of Fire and go to bed early.  Tomorrow morning is going to arrive WAY earlier than usual.

This morning’s run was HARD.  My legs felt super heavy and it was humid and I wasn’t sure I could do it.  I ran the first mile and then ran a 2-mile loop twice to get halfway through, and I realized that if I did that loop twice more I might jump in front of a passing car.  It’s hard enough to run that many miles (for me).  If I have to see the same things over and over again, I’ll go nuts.  Or quit.  Actually, that’s the biggest problem.  If I’m running laps near the house, the temptation to just go home every time I get close to the house is a little too much for me.  I’m much more likely to do the whole thing if it’s out and back.  I won’t turn around early, and when I reach halfway, I have no choice but to do the whole distance to get home.  Anyway, I got to the five-mile mark after two loops and decided to run the last five miles out and back.  It was better, but not easier.  I found myself chanting “Just keep swimming.  Just keep swimming,” half the time.  I don’t know why I thought it (I haven’t seen that movie in a long time), but Dory was a welcome distraction.

I saw a woman who ran so neatly.   Her elbows were in and her strides were short and she looked so efficient.  She made me notice how much I move while I run.  I’m not exactly throwing my arms around a la Phoebe in that one episode, but I’m all loose-limbed and my hair was bouncing around my head in its braid and I kept adjusting my shoulders and posture – one good shake and I might have fallen apart in a pile of bones.  Not trim and tight and economical.  Maybe I’m doing it wrong and that’s why this morning was so hard.  I saw that woman twice, and both times she made me feel like a slobbering pile of flailing limbs.  I’m sure she didn’t mean to – she looked like a nice lady.

Had a very busy weekend, but not a very productive one.  Feeling a little guilty about that.  But not overmuch (that’s for tomorrow, when panic sets in) because I just watched three hours of Doctor Who with John, and while all three episodes were fantastic, the first one we watched today (season 3′s “Blink”) was the absolute best hour of TV I have EVER SEEN.  It was a GREAT episode, totally stands alone but still captures the Doctor, and on top of that, was effectively and freakishly scary.  Creepy.  SO well done.  Lots of caps.  Sorry.  I feel very strongly about that episode.  Greg, I think this is one of the ones you mentioned – anything you needed to tell us?

We stopped after Part II of the next three-parter, but we’ll probably watch Part III before we go to bed.  I don’t know how I managed before Doctor Who.

As for the rest of the weekend, remind me to tell you about bunco, Oktoberfest, a TON of neighbors I’ve never met before (despite living here for almost 6 years), and running just under 9 miles in the rain.  No need to remind me to tell you about that last bit, actually.  That’s all there is to say about it.  Oh, except I RAN THE WHOLE THING, including that hill I hate.  But that’s all. 

I want to keep babbling, mostly about Doctor Who and some about The Guild (we’ll start watching the current season soon – finished season 4 yesterday), but since what I’m hearing in my head is not remotely coherent (a lot of squeeing and why don’t we own that? and what the hell took us so long to get here?), I’m going to spare you.  Instead I’ll see if John can hurry up with his game so we can get back to Doctor Who.  I have priorities.

Did you guys see this? Cracks me up. I sing it ALL the time now.

(I know – I need to tone down the obsession. I just can’t help myself.)

Used to be, back in the old days, my hair was a pain when I exercised because it was short.  Too short to pull back.  It got in my face and my eyes, and the wind whipped it around while I was running, and was all around annoying.  Then it was long enough to put in a ponytail and everything was fine.  For years, I had no problem with my ponytail.  But for years, I never ran for more than an hour and usually not much more than 40 minutes.  Lately, as my runs get longer, I’m out longer, I’m sweating more (and for longer), and my hair is getting grosser.  My long ponytail gets soaked with sweat and matted and tangled to the point where I can’t get a comb through it.  After 11 miles on Saturday, I had to wash my hair twice, the second time with shampoo that was also a conditioner, before I could get the tangles out.  Not cool.  So I’m searching for a solution.  I need another hairstyle for exercise.  (I’m not quite ready to cut my hair.)  This morning, I pulled it into a ponytail, braided the ponytail, and twisted it into a bun.  The bun wasn’t all that secure, but I only went two miles, so it lasted okay.  And this evening before my strength class, I pulled it back into a regular braid.  Messy, but it was out of the way.  Of course, the strength class doesn’t really present a hair problem.  The issue now (that can probably be resolved with practice) is that I suck at braiding my own hair.  It’s behind my head and I can’t see it, so it’s messy and uneven and HARD.  My arms get tired.  Are there any tricks to this?  Is there something obvious I’m missing (I hope) that makes it easier to braid your own hair or is it just a matter of practicing until it’s easy?  When I try to pull it over one shoulder to finish the braid, the whole thing gets lopsided.  Why do I suck at hair?

I have been busy.  Good busy and bad busy.  The bad busy parts stress me out.  The good busy parts are things I could do all the time, every day.  And if I could get rid of the bad busy parts, I’d have time for things I like to do when I’m not doing the good busy parts, like playing on the internet.  Like READING.  John looked over at my book the other night, noticed I wasn’t even halfway through it, and told me it felt like I’d been reading that book forEVER.  I’m not sure in exactly what way how long I spend reading a particular book affects him, but if he noticed I haven’t been reading much, then I really haven’t been reading much.  Tragic.

I spent most of the last three days (all weekend and much of Monday) working on my statistics project.  (This is one of the good busy things.)  Nothing about it was hard, but there were a lot of pieces and the instructions were confusing.  I tried to get clarification from my professor, but since I never heard back, I made some decisions based on what the instructions would have said if I’d written them.  I hope they were the right decisions.  I turned it in late last night.  One big task done.  Yay!  Actually, that was the main good busy thing.  The one that took most of my time.  I talked to Corey finally (he’s going to disown me if I put him off any longer) – hooray for change!  Also, I, uh, bought more wine from my favorite local wineries and went to Borders.  Again.  These were very important errands.  Really.  Oh, and I saw Crazy, Stupid, Love Saturday night with a woman I know from the gym.  It was cute.  Ryan Gosling’s ears are too small to be believed.  Seriously tiny ears.

I did one other kinda major good busy thing this weekend.  Big accomplishment for me.  (Big.)  I ran 10 miles Sunday morning.  Ten whole miles.  I wasn’t very fast, and I walked a little bit, but I did it.  I am no longer afraid that I won’t be able to finish the race in October.  I did it.  The last mile was really hard (it wasn’t early morning anymore and the sun was high and the shade had disappeared and I’d been running for nearly two hours and it was my tenth mile), but I realized as I started it that I’d never run this far before (8 miles – two weeks ago – was my longest run until Sunday morning).  And with every step I took, I was running farther.  Each step was one more than I’d ever run before.  There aren’t very many times I’ll be able to say that.

So that was my weekend.  The good busy stuff is all cool and great (now that I’ve turned in my statistics project), but it doesn’t end there.  I have two more quizzes and a final to complete by next Thursday for statistics, and my next calculus class (differential equations this semester) started yesterday.  I’m so glad my classes only overlap by a week and a half.  Any more than that and I’d be seriously considering quitting my job.  I don’t know how people manage working full-time and going to school at the same time.  With just one class at a time and no extra-curricular work activities (don’t get me started), when I can leave work at work, I can manage.  Anything more and my head starts to spin, Exorcist-style.  (It’s not pretty.)  But yesterday, even though it was a Monday and I had work to do and a project to finish, was a really good day.  The weather was perfect, I had the windows open to catch the very breezy breeze, I got a lot done, my legs didn’t hurt from the run the day before, and my strength class that night was calming.  (I really like my gym.)

———Break for earthquake———

This post was going to have an ending, but then there was an earthquake.  Nothing else got done today.  The earthquake ate my ending.

This seemed really funny to me at the time, but now I can’t decide if it’s funny or if I’m just an idiot.  Let’s start with the part where I look good.

Yesterday morning, I ran 8 miles.

Please applaud now.  By the time you get to the end of the story, you may want to pretend you don’t know me.

The first half was really really hard, but I felt really good the whole second half.  I’d like to think that was partly because I didn’t feel loose and warmed up until I was well into my third mile, but I’m sure it was mostly because the last four miles were all downhill.  There was something weird going on with my right foot, though.  It felt like it was asleep half the time, all pins and needles, concentrated behind my toes and around the ball of my foot.  Other times, I could feel this weird rubbing pain along the outside of my big toe.  All in my right foot.  I kept wiggling my toes and trying to lean towards the outer right side while running, but it wasn’t really getting better.  Weird, a little worrisome, but with a little adjustment I could get by.  I figured I’d take a closer look when I got home.  I changed my stride a bit, headed back downhill, and kinda forgot about it for a while.  Later, I was stretching in the kitchen, and when I bent down to reach for my toes (I’d say I was touching my toes, but my whole life I’ve never been able to do that and I’d hate to lie to you), I noticed something a little off.

Look closely.  Do those look like the same shoe to you?  No?  Yeah.  They’re not.

The shoe on my left foot is one half of my current running pair.  The shoe on my right foot is not.  I stopped running in that pair of shoes at least 9 months ago, if not more, because they were shot.  It hurt to run in them.  That certainly explains the weird pains and pins and needles in my right foot only.  And now I feel like an idiot.  I ran 8 miles in two different shoes and I DIDN’T NOTICE.  Except I kinda did.  Kinda.  In my defense, we got up very early and it was overcast and gloomy and we didn’t turn the light on in the bedroom and hey, come on, they look a LOT alike.

But not that alike.  I guess it could have been worse.  At least I had one right shoe and one left shoe and I wore them on the correct feet.  John says I should even it out by running another 8 miles wearing the opposite shoe from each pair.  John thinks he’s pretty funny.  I will make sure my retired running shoes find a new home.  Far away from my current running shoes.  This will not happen again.

What were my goals for this past weekend?  Right.

1. Complete two statistics quizzes
2. Run six miles
3. Buy groceries
4. Go to Target
5. Weed the flower beds

Out of five things, I managed to do only one.  ONE.  That’s pathetic.  Statistics is way more time-consuming that I expected.  I didn’t even make it to the first of those two quizzes.  I’m still doing the homework problems. I did run my six miles, but the rest of my list was left undone.

I hate that.

I took my calculus final last night.  I don’t feel good about it.  And that sucks.  But it’s over, it’s done, there’s nothing left but the screaming, and I will do my best not to fret.  Until I get my grade.  But then at least I’ll know.  New focus: statistics.  My goal for the weekend is to get through two more quizzes.  And run six miles on Saturday.  That’s really all I’m hoping to accomplish.  That and get to the grocery store.  I need to buy lots of fruit and other healthy things.  And maybe go to Target.  And possibly weed the flower beds.  Drink some wine.  Oooh, I bought a raspberry merlot (“the kind you buy at a second-hand store”) at one of the wineries Jess and I visited last weekend (did I mention Jess and I went wine-tasting last Saturday?).  It’s really good.  Sadly, it’s mostly gone already.  I might have to buy more…but maybe not this weekend.  I’m in danger of over-scheduling myself.  Focus, please.  Statistics!

I’m behind on posting, behind on reading, behind on news…behind on the internet in general.  I have a draft I started during the day on Friday, but I got sidetracked that evening (big book sale – woo!) and didn’t post, and then Saturday we left early (after dropping our dead microwave off at a local high school for recycling) for PA so we could be there for John’s grandfather’s birthday party.  I didn’t bring my computer, so I was actually without internet (I’m not counting my phone ’cause I didn’t use it) from Saturday morning until now (we just got home).  Crazy, I know.  And it seems like a ton happened.  That may not be true, but it feels like it is.

My plan for this week is to get back on track.  I felt awful all last week (too much (and too rich) food, NO exercise, not enough sleep).  I slept pretty well, and long enough, last night, ran a couple of miles this morning, and managed to eat normal amounts of food today (okay, maybe six blueberry pancakes isn’t really normal, but I hardly had anything after that), so I feel like I’ve made a good start.  Short term goal (really short term): get a normal night’s sleep tonight and run tomorrow morning.

I woke up this morning a little crazy with anxiety.  The worst thing about it is that I woke up with a list of all the things I should be doing on a loop in my head, and then I froze.  I could have gotten up right then to get started on the list, but did I?  No, I stayed in bed.  Because I could put off all the hard things.  I do that all the time (procrastinate).   Of course, that gives me less time overall to get everything done, so all it really does is ratchet up the anxiety a little more.  Not exactly helpful behavior.

Instead, let’s a play a game (courtesy of Mom) called “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Anxiety Causing Thing #1: Quiz #4 for vector calculus and the midterm I have to take on Thursday

What’s the worst that could happen?  Well, I could get all the answers wrong on my quiz, but that doesn’t affect my grade (just makes my professor think I’m an idiot), so there isn’t anything to worry about there.  Of course, my performance on my quizzes is an indicator of my performance on the midterm, so if I don’t do well on my quizzes, I may not do well on my midterm.  And I could fail my midterm.  So what if I do?  I won’t have a very good grade in my calculus class.  That would be a blow to my ego (something I could survive), and it may put me on the road to failing this class.  What if I fail the class?  I’m taking it online at a community college because I need the prereq for grad school.  If I fail it, I’m out approximately $350.  If I fail it, I can retake it later.  Will I fail it?  Probably not.  I may not get an A.  I may not even get a B.  But I probably won’t fail.  I submitted my quiz this morning (confident that I got three out of four right), so that’s out of my hands, and I still have today, tomorrow, Wednesday, and part of Thursday to study for the midterm.  Breathe deep.

Anxiety Causing Thing #2: Work

What’s the worst that could happen?  I could get fired.  Or laid off.  Or whatever.  That could happen, but there’s nothing I can do about it (and there’s no immediate indication that it’s coming), so that’s not what’s making me edgy.  There’s nothing specific about work that’s bothering me.  No major deadlines, no one is asking me to do anything I’m not capable of, I don’t have any issues with any coworkers.  I just don’t like it.  I don’t want to come here every day.  (I know, whine whine whine, most people don’t actually like going to work.)  I want to do something with flexible hours where I can work from home and have more time for me.  The math that’s stressing me out is the first step in that direction, so this is more of a low-level, back-burner, always-bugging-me sort of thing that every once in a while jumps up and says, “Hey!  Loser!  Worry about me!”

Anxiety Causing Thing #3: Army Ten-Miler

Did I tell you about this?  A few weeks ago, John registered to run in the Army Ten-Miler this October, and I caved to the very mild peer pressure and registered with him.  So what’s the worst that could happen?  I’ll be so slow that the bus that picks up the slowpokes who aren’t going to finish in the required time will pick me up.  Humiliating.  I have 17 weeks to train for it.  I had more, but I didn’t use them.  I can’t procrastinate on this one, so every day I don’t start this training plan gets under my skin, and I didn’t run today.  Well, I kinda did.  I sprinted around the block (up the hills) a couple of times with the dogs this morning.  My math anxiety trumped my race anxiety this morning – I spent the extra time on my quiz.  (SuzRocks sent me a link to a half-marathon training plan.  I figure if I’m capable of running a half-marathon by the time I finish training, ten miles should seem easy.  Ish.  I just need to start the &^$* training plan.)

There are other things that bug me (there are always other things), but those are the three I woke up with this morning.  Peace, serenity, lots of gym time tonight, some studying…I’ve got it under control.

Happy thoughts!

Honestly and truly, I have the next part of the Wales story written. I just have to add the pictures and then I’ll post. So…tomorrow? Today I worked a little, finished a book (The Alien Years by Robert Silverberg – good, but not one of my favorites. It reminded me too much of those young adult Tripod books I read a very long time ago.), and ran my first mile (of only two today, but still) WAY faster than I have in a long time. Good day. I like having Mondays off.

Damn. Edited to remove the double spaces after each period.

There’s something about running first thing on a sunny morning that puts me in SUCH a good mood.  I listened to music during my run for the first time in a long time, and even though my legs felt heavy and it was hard to keep going, the sun was shining, I was singing (and gasping) along with my favorite songs, and it was fun.  I got back to the house just when John got back from getting breakfast (bagels, mini muffins, hot chocolate) and plugged my mp3 player into the stereo for Buddy Holly’s “Rave On”.  Good song.  We’ve moved on to Brian Setzer.

Molly is unconscious upstairs.  We’ll get her up soon.

I was totally impressed by a runner this morning.  There’s this huge hill a little over a mile from our house, and I usually hit it at the end of my third mile on a four mile walk/jog.  I’ve jogged up this hill no more than…maybe six times in over two years.  It’s steep and long (about .2 miles) and difficult.  So I’m usually walking.  Like I was this morning.  A guy came towards me, down the hill, in a casual jog, slow pace.  I thought to myself (like I always do when I see someone jogging DOWN this giant hill), “Sure, it looks easy when you’re going downhill.  When I get around the corner, I’ll be jogging downhill, too.  Try jogging UP!”  (I’m not always that mean, and I’m aware that they must have gotten to the top of the hill somehow, and yeah, they might have jogged up, which is more than I’m doing, but STILL.  That’s not when I see them and that’s not the frame of mind I’m usually in when I’m trudging up my local Mount Everest.)  Anyway, this guy passed me on his way down, and I continued my trudge to the moon.  Less than a minute later, I heard pounding footsteps behind me.  Dude came booking past me at light speed on his way BACK UP THE HILL.  His legs were moving so fast.  It looked like his body was sitting on top of a wheel, like in a cartoon.

He was wearing blue, too. Maybe he WAS the Road Runner!

So he went blowing by me, got to the top of the Himalayas, and came sauntering back down.  I made it to the top about when he got to the bottom again, so I stopped to watch him come back up.  Totally impressive.

This morning I saw a guy running in those weird barefoot running shoes.  The guy looked super uncomfortable and sort of like a duck.  Flat-footed.  Or like he was wearing flippers.  (Flippers?  Those things scuba divers wear on their feet are flippers, right?)

You know, these things.

Googling…Vibram Five Fingers shoes.  They look ridiculous and uncomfortable, and while I understand the idea behind the whole back-to-nature thing, I’m totally okay with the engineering that brought me my running shoes.  While I was googling these, I found a bunch of websites about running barefoot for real, no shoes at all, with or without toes.  (With or without toes on the shoes, I mean.  The people running barefoot have toes.  I assume.  Maybe some of them don’t.  I shouldn’t make that assumption.)  CRAZY.  Hot pavement, rocks, broken glass, HARD pavement – not for me.  If I could arrange to do all my running on nicely mowed grassy lawns, I might consider doing it barefoot.  Anything else?  No way.

(oh) What a beautiful day.  This morning was perfect, in every way, and when I went for a run, I was so happy to be out doing just what I was doing and seeing just what I was seeing that I nearly cried.  The sky was this perfect September blue, the trees were still green, the morning light was clear and the air was fresh, and even though I’m sore and tired now, that feeling this morning makes it okay.  Better than okay.

That paragraph makes me sound ecstatically happy.  I’m too tired to be ecstatically happy.  I’m worn out happy.  With a dehydration (I think) headache.  John and I went to Waterford this afternoon for the Waterford Fair.  Happens every year, but we keep forgetting about it, so this is the first year we’ve gone.  They’ve got tours of historic homes, LOTS of exhibits and vendors selling all kinds of crafts, live music, and lots of food.  A couple of residents are selling their homes, so they took advantage of the crowds to hold open houses.  NICE houses.  And they’ve come down in price; both of the houses John and I looked at were only $695,000.

Tangent:

John Scalzi is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors, both for his novels and his blog.  Check out his latest post.  The idea came from the two previous posts.

Back to the fair.  But really only for pictures (all taken by John, used with permission ).

John and I decided this was a re-enactment of that time a squad of soldiers got lost and wandered down Main Street in Waterford during the Civil War.

Look! Baby lambs! According to the sign on the pen, they're only two days old. The white one is a boy and the black one is a girl. Super cute.

Anyway, the fair was fun, but Waterford has some major hills (okay, one major hill), and we got a little too much sun, and we’re both very tired.  Tomorrow will probably be more restful.

I can’t have a cat.  Riley would spend every minute bouncing off the ceiling.  Every minute he’s not trying to eat the poor thing.  He’s high-strung as it is.  I got further proof of that this morning when I brought a cat inside.  Briefly.  After I threw him and Roxy out on the deck.

Let me back up.

I went out this morning for a jog, as usual.  (Kind of as usual.  You know, every other day usual.  The way I left the house was as usual for when I go for a jog.  Oh, hell.  Leave me alone.)  About a half mile from the house, on the opposite side of a busy-for-my-town street from my neighborhood, I saw a cat narrowly avoid being hit by a car.  It was okay, hanging out on the sidewalk when I got there, not even a little bit afraid of me.  He’s a pretty little cat, not a kitten, not full-grown.  I guessed 6-7 months old (the vet said maybe 8 months, but not more).  No collar, no tags, not neutered, but he’s clean (and definitely a he) and seems well-fed.  Almost definitely not a stray.  Like 98% not a stray.  He was right behind a house in this other neighborhood, so I walked to their front door to see if he belonged to them.  He followed me.  Right by my ankles.  I knocked (it wasn’t even 7 yet – a little early for a doorbell), but no one answered.  I saw people at a house on the next block, so I headed that way.  He followed me.  They didn’t recognize him.  I tried another house.  Same thing.  I went back to the first house, closest to where I found him, and since there was a light on now, I rang the doorbell.  A guy and his little girl answered the door.  Not their cat.

Three houses with no luck, and the cat’s still following me, so I picked him up and headed home.  Easier said than done.  He let me carry him for a couple of minutes and then he struggled a little.  I calmed him enough to get by another house or so, and then he twisted again.  I put him down, thinking maybe he’d keep following me.  Nope.  He headed for a house like maybe he lived there, so I rang the doorbell.  No answer.  And then he went to another house like he lived there.  So, yeah, this little kitty doesn’t know where home is.  Scooped him up and continued home.  Repeat twice more, without the doorbell-ringing.

I finally got back to the house, but John was out running and I needed to get in the door without getting my face and arms clawed off when the cat tried to escape from the dogs.  I got the teenager across the street to hold him while I shoved the dogs into the backyard (more difficult than usual – Riley’s nose was glued to my cat-hair-covered shirt).  Then I locked the adorable little kitty whose patience was wearing thin in the hall bathroom.  He immediately starting yowling.  I don’t blame him.  I called a couple of the local vets.  All I was looking for was a place to leave this cat for a day or two while I post flyers (fliers?  Looks like fleers.) and look for the owner, and the shelter is kinda far in the wrong direction (wrong if I’m trying to get to work close to on time).  The first vet I called won’t hold a pet unless they know who the owner is.  Not helpful.  The second one was sympathetic, though, totally understood what I need, and was willing to take the cutie-pie, at least for a day or so.  In the meantime, Riley tried to throw himself through the sliding glass door to get at the CAT!  THERE’S A CAT IN THERE!  LET ME AT IT!

John came home about then, so I explained why awful screaming noises were occasionally coming from the hall bathroom (not hurt noises, just hilarious lonely noises) and why Riley (who was no longer trying to hulk his way into the house) was stomping his foot (he really does that) and whining urgently.  John got his camera, and I opened the door to find Stan (he looks like an Oliver, but we know a cat named Oliver, so he’s Stan and no, we’re not keeping him) on the bathroom sink.  John took some pictures (see below) for the flyers I’ll make later today, and I threw him (Stan, not John) in the car for the drive to the nice vet.

He was fine in the car (we no longer have a pet carrier of any kind, and we never had one small enough for a cat), and he was happy to go with the vet tech.  I have their number, they have my number, and when they can’t keep him any longer, I’ll move him on to the shelter.  If I haven’t found the owner by then.  After work, I’ll stop at FedEx Office (I think that’s what they call themselves now, not FedEx Kinko’s anymore), make a bunch of flyers, and shove them in mailboxes in my neighborhood and the neighborhood across that street.  I’ve already posted in the community forums, so hopefully I’ll get some response.

I got a phone call from John a little bit ago.  On his way out of the neighborhood this morning, when he left for work, he got stuck behind a car going REALLY SLOWLY down the street.  He was super annoyed at the time, but it occurred to him, as he sat in traffic, that it might have been the cat’s owners driving slowly by.  That’s probably how I’d go looking for my missing cat.  We’ll keep an eye out for that car, too.

Anyway, if I don’t hear from the owner in a couple of days, there’ll be a cute cat on the market.  Free to a good home.  Want one?

It’s a happy coincidence that I’m rescuing a cat on Wombat’s Random Act Wednesday, but there you have it.  Also, Spokeit‘s post from yesterday ran through my mind all morning.  Gotta love our online community.

I have a massive headache right now.  Probably sinus-related, but I can also feel it at the base of my skull.  Not fun.  To distract myself from it, I’m going to tell you about the best part of my day today.  I went for a run this morning.  Three miles.  Not anything huge, and it was kinda hard, but I was doing okay.  Right at the very end, I came up to a corner in the neighborhood just as John (who had also gone for a run) got to the same corner from another direction.  I slowed down to meet him, but he wasn’t quite done.  He took a turn to the right (onto the street I’d been running along) and kept going, so I picked up the pace a little to catch up.  I just wanted to jog along next to him, but he heard me coming and went a little faster.  So I went a little faster.  In the space of two house-widths (like horse-lengths, you know?), we were sprinting all out (or as all out as either of us had left after several miles each), and as long as I could keep it up, I WAS EVEN WITH HIM.  How crazy is that?  He’s nine inches taller than me.  My legs were churning as fast as I could move them and not fall down.  I felt like a cartoon of myself, like my legs weren’t visible as anything but whooshing circles.  It was awesome.

I think we should race.  Short distance, all out sprint, when we’re both fresh.

I fell today.  I was jogging along with the dogs, and I started to untwist the leashes, which is something I do at least three times every day I take them with me (Riley ducks and weaves around Roxy – he doesn’t want to miss a single tree, mailbox, clump of weeds, drain, or bush), and I stopped paying attention to my feet.  Usually not an issue.  Today, though, the sidewalk reached up and grabbed my heel, forcing me to trip over the seam.  For a split-second, while my feet were scrabbling for purchase, I thought I had it, I thought I was going to be able to recover and stay on my feet, but then I lost it.  I slammed into the sidewalk, caught myself with the heels of both palms and my right elbow, and bounced onto my right side.  (I think.  That’s the only explanation I can think of for why the right side of my thigh is scraped and bruised (along with my hands and that one elbow), but not my knees.)  I rolled onto the grass in someone’s front yard to take stock and find the leashes I’d dropped.  The scrapes are mostly just along the surface so my skin is a little rough, but there was no blood except for the scrape along my elbow.  Still, I cut my run short and headed home.

Not the most auspicious start to my day.