Inane Chatter

Today started out boring and got…not boring.  Interesting.  But not the good kind of interesting.

I ran this morning (just two miles with the dogs) and it was cold enough that I could try out my new winter running clothes.  All that moisture-wicking stuff.  Worked great!  Well, I don’t know about the wicking, but it was an effective extra layer.  I wasn’t really cold.  Okay, review’s over.

Now for the not-boring part.

One of our friends at work got fired laid off today.  He didn’t get any notice.  It was one of those Friday afternoon bombshells.  John found out when he asked for boxes so he could pack up his office.  The last time our boss laid people off, she gave them two weeks.  That was over a year ago, when the economy was much stronger.  And that is just one of the many things that bother us about this whole thing.  I was about to list other things, but because I’m deliberately being vague about this, the list lacks substance.

Our boss came to each of the rest of us to tell us what happened and to reassure us that our jobs are safe.  It’s hard to believe that.  We’re not really worried, exactly, but it’s better to be prepared.  I’m pretty confident that we’ll have jobs at least through the rest of the fiscal year.

Anyway, John is outright angry.  It’s going to be an interesting weekend.  But thankfully, it IS the weekend.  In some ways, this has been a long week (TWO dentist appointments!), and in others, it’s gone pretty quickly.  No matter how I look at it, though, I’m tired.  We don’t have any major plans – well, I don’t.  John is meeting his project group Sunday morning.  I would like to get some holiday shopping done, although we’ll probably be scaling back on that, compared to other years.

I feel like we should be more careful (financially) that we’re being right now.  We’re not in any trouble, but SO many other people are that I think we should just be, well, more careful.  Who knows what could happen?  Especially after today.  So I’m thinking the big present idea I had for John might be off the table this year.  And if he’s planning on spending a lot on me, I’ll try to talk him out of it.  I’m worried about the what-ifs.  (Because I always have to have something to worry about.  Just ask John.  Or Mom.  It’s just that money isn’t usually it.  And it isn’t even it right now.  I feel like I should be worried about it.  So I am.)

I’m still going to have a nice weekend.  The no-major-plans part will help a lot.  I can just relax while John works on his project.  I can clean up our bedroom (which looks like a hurricane struck), maybe finally clean out the closets (although that might be too ambitious for this weekend), read, listen to the new Christmas albums that just got delivered, RUN – I have to run.  I keep saying that, but that’s only because I really mean it.

John and I ordered Chinese food tonight because his throat is starting to get scratchy and he wanted wonton soup (Mom, did you catch that?  He wanted SOUP(!) for his sore throat.).  We watched an episode of Rescue Me, and then his mom called.  They’re discussing the best way to crop our winning family picture, I’m assuming for Christmas cards.  Or maybe just to go in Christmas cards.  And that reminds me.  Last year, John and I sent holiday cards.  Actually, we made two lists.  One list was cards for me to send, and one was for him.  John never did get around to sending any on his list.  I sent all of mine, but here’s the problem: I didn’t keep the list.  I don’t know who I sent cards to last year.  I know some of them, but I’m sure I can’t remember all of them.  Here’s a thought.  If I sent you a holiday card last year, send me your address again.    I can’t believe I didn’t keep the list.  I can only think of seven or eight that I’m sure I sent.  And I’m sure I sent more than that.  So….if you don’t get a card from me this year, and you got one last year, I’m sorry.  I’m not snubbing you.  If you didn’t get a card from me last year, then yes, I am snubbing you. 

I went to the doctor today.  I’d been feeling progressively better over the last few days, but then I couldn’t stop coughing last night.  I actually slept in the guest room because the bed in there is in the corner.  I piled every pillow in the house (I let John keep a couple) into that corner so I could sleep sitting upright.  It still took forever for me to stop coughing long enough to fall asleep.  It was nice to wake up to sunlight streaming in the window, though.  Our bedroom is on the north side of the house, so I don’t usually get to the see that.  The window in the guest room faces south.  Anyway, even taking the same medicines I’ve been taking all week, I couldn’t get my coughing under control today.  So finally I left the office this afternoon to go to the doctor.

Turns out I have bronchitis.

First Question: How can I have bronchitis and still feel perfectly healthy (cough aside)?  I don’t feel sick.  My head is clear, I’m not achy, I don’t have a fever – and yet, I have bronchitis.  Well, whatever.  I’m just glad to know what it is and to have the right medication.

Second Question: Does this mean I shouldn’t run in the Herndon Turkey Trot tomorrow?  I was assuming an immediate no since, you know, I have BRONCHITIS, but the doctor said that as long as I start the antibiotic and other medication (robitussin dm and an inhaler of some kind), I should be fine.  It’s at 4pm, it’ll be about 40 degrees out, and I’ll be bundled up.   So I’ll be running a 5K tomorrow and then hanging out with my friends (dinner and Bond!).  Totally weird.

In other news, I have no other news.  Really.  Work was slow.  We had our annual office Thanksgiving lunch, so there were a lot of people in the office we don’t usually see.  That makes it sound like we brought strangers in off the street or something.  Which actually would have been a really nice thing to do.  No, I meant that the people who work in the Ballston office came over, and some people brought their families in.  We saw all the new babies (who I stayed far away from, I promise) and got to catch up with coworkers we really only see about once a year.  It’s generally a nice event (and we have a new caterer this year who’s REALLY good), but I didn’t stick around since I figured it wouldn’t be polite to cough all over the crowds in the conference room and kitchen.

Damn.  I just checked tomorrow’s forecast.  It’s going to be about 35 degrees and WINDY tomorrow afternoon.  A 25mph wind will make it feel like about 25 degrees, and that’s what I’ll be running in.  Makes me look forward to it just a bit less.  Just a bit.  Then again, I have already discovered that the Weather Channel lies to me, so maybe it won’t be that bad.

This may surprise you, but running in the cold sucks.  At least for now the sun is up when we go out in the morning, but it’s not really helping.  According to www.weather.com (which John is convinced I rely on too much), it was 31 degrees out when I left the house and 27 degrees when I came back.  Isn’t that  backwards? How does it get colder in half an hour when the sun is up and there’s no wind?  Doesn’t it usually get warmer as the day progresses?  So maybe John’s right and weather.com is lying to me.  Either way, I need to buy actual cold-weather running clothes.  Running when temperatures are below freezing takes almost all the willpower I have, and maybe having cool new weather-appropriate clothes will make it easier to get out of bed.

I realized late last night that I left out the actual results of the 5K we ran yesterday, in case anyone was interested.  My official race time was 29:48, which works out to a 9:36 pace.  That seems unreal to me, since when I run on my own, I usually run a 10-10:30 minute mile, and that stretches to 12:30 when I take the dogs.  In my first 5K, I finished in 29:22 or something like that.  My last 5K was 31:42 (ish).  I’m not all that consistent yet.  I plan to actually train for the Herndon Turkey Trot on the 22nd, so hopefully I’ll still finish in under 30 minutes.  John finished this one in 24:16 (a 7:49 pace!).  I think he’s trying to break 24 minutes.  I don’t really have a goal time.  I just like how I feel when I’m done. 

This morning was the annual (I guess, but we’ve never done it before) Purcellville Turkey Trot.  John and I registered a few weeks ago to run the 5K, but neither of us really prepared for it.  And then last night I checked the weather and saw the 50% chance of rain all morning.  So we decided to make the decision when we got up, based on whether or not it was raining then.  We both knew that putting off making the decision about whether to go until morning made it a lot less likely that we would actually get out of bed.  But 7:00 rolled around, the alarm went off, it wasn’t raining, and John (very unenthusiastically) said we really should go.  We paid to register, so we should go (and get our t-shirts.  I know that’s Dad’s big motivation!).  My argument was that the money was going to a good cause (Loudoun Valley Community Center, I think) whether we ran or not.  But he was right, so we got up and got going.  It took us about 25 minutes or so to get there.  It was a little chilly (mid to upper 50s), but we found a great parking spot in the (really cute) historic section of Purcellville, right across the street from the registration table.  Picked up our goodie bags, pinned our numbers to our shirts, and then stood in line for the bathroom.  Girls take forever!  Except me.    We were almost the last people to join the crowd at the starting line, and then John helped me get a little more towards the middle (because I’m really paranoid about being the last person in a race.  I didn’t want to start out at the very back.).

Anyway, the race started and I lost sight of John immediately (as usual).  I was trying to figure out which random people in the pack I would end up staying near the whole time.  There’s always someone I’m trying to catch and someone I’m trying to stay ahead of.  Today there was a short woman in a white shirt and a brown hat who was usually just ahead of me.  I passed her a couple of times, but never for very long.  There was also a woman wearing today’s race shirt (the shirts for this race are really nice – soft, long-sleeve, and nice autumn gold color) and long grey pants, tall, who stayed pretty much even with me the whole race.  We leap-frogged some, but neither of us could break away.  Finally, there was this girl in a light blue shirt who drove me crazy.  She was running just ahead of me, but then she’d stop to walk.  I’d pass her, and then a while later, she’d pass me, running again.  But she never got very far ahead of me, so what kind of pace was she running?  Fast enough to catch up and pass me after walking for a while, but not so fast that she never got more than 15-20 feet ahead of me – that’s a really weird, uneven pace.  And no, I wasn’t speeding up when she was ahead of me.  So that was driving me a little crazy ’cause she just didn’t fit.

The second mile was HARD.  It was all along this long, straight, hilly road.  There may have only been two or three hills, but they were big ones.  You couldn’t see the next one until you had climbed the first, so you couldn’t tell how many more times you’d be running uphill.  And no one likes to run uphill.  The third mile was mostly on the W&OD Trail, and that was gorgeous.  It was lined with trees, so the trail was lightly covered in leaves, and the sun had come out.  Very pleasant, even though the third mile is when I’m struggling and just trying to keep my feet moving.  I had planned to try to sprint to the finish, but I couldn’t see the clock and the line until I was almost on top of them, so I didn’t end up doing that.  I finished strong, though.  And I felt great when it was over.  We grabbed some water, walked around a little, and headed back home.  John wanted to stop at Melodee Music to see if they had a bridge for his guitar, but they weren’t open yet, so we had breakfast at the Georgetown Cafe in Leesburg.

The Georgetown Cafe is on King Street, just south of Market.  I’ve seen it a bunch of times, but have never gone in.  They had a sign in the window advertising chocolate chip pancakes, so we decided to go in (and then neither of us ordered chocolate chip pancakes).  Anyway, the waiter/host/etc (manager?) was Gary (I think), and was really nice.  A little goofy, but nice, and we’ll definitely be coming back.  I can see us becoming regulars (sort of – we don’t do breakfast out all that often).  He says he gets a lot of runners on weekends after races.

To wrap up this very long post, we had a yummy breakfast, went to Melodee where John did not find a bridge for his guitar, went to Potomac River Running to buy new shoes for me, and then came home.  We’re going to West Virginia in less than two hours, so I’m going to take care of a couple of things (like showering and packing).