procrastination

this is me.
procrastinating.
its mile repeat morning and i am trying something new.
that something new being waiting till all three kids are on the bus and off to school before i start my mile repeats.
the butt crack of dawn thing was habit.
left over from early summer workouts to beat the heat.
so now, i thought - why not wait till it warms up a bit?
gets a bit lighter out?
but the thing is?
it's 9:09.
and i'm sitting here.
in my running clothes.
procrastinating.
i had to do some dishes. check email.
throw in some loads of laundry.
then there was a good crock pot recipe on the today show
i had to watch.
see, the thing about getting up at 4:45 to go run
is that there is nothing else to do.
get up. get dressed. go run.
under the cover of darkness so no one can see the snot flying.
the sun is up now. still here.
must go. get this done. cross another square off.
the jury is still out on this later in the morning thing.

avoiding the treadmill

at all costs.

today was my 19 mile long run. it was going to be another rainy one. and while the one and only thing i hate about running is running in the rain, i hate the treadmill more. i pride myself on the fact that i am now into training for marathon number 3, i have set foot on a treadmill only once. that one time was enough. i will run in any weather. i will get up at 4 am in the summer to beat the heat. i will bundle up against the cold. i will wear a windbreaker thing in the rain. the one thing i can't protect myself from? lightning.

so this morning, i'm running. i'm running. and i've got my head down and i'm in a nice little zone. a surprisingly happy place even though i'm going slower than i'd like. i'm only 5 miles into run. i feel good. i'm saving the best for the second half. and then, the sky lights up a bit. but my head was down, i had a cap on & i wasn't sure if i imagined it. there it goes again. shit. lighting. oh, and now the thunder. perfect. this is perfect. and now i am thinking that if it gets really bad, i will have to finish this run on the treadmill. i pick up the pace to try and cover as much ground as possible, in an attempt to lessen the miles i imagine having to plod through on that vile machine. the sky lights up a few more times. but i never see that big lightning bolt sort of a flash. so i think i'm good to go. and the sky never lights up again. phew. in the clear.

and then around mile 9, the skies open up and it is a torrential downpour. i am soaked to the bone. i'm cold. and i really want to be home. but it is raining so hard, that i once again wonder if i am going to have to stop this run and finish it on the treadmill. i start calculating how far i am from home, how many miles are left. and doing all this math in my head takes up a nice chunk of time. but then i think over my dead body am i going home, warming up, waiting for gym to open at noon and plugging through 6 or 7 miles on a treadmill. i'm already cold, wet & miserable, may as well suck it up and stay that way.

and at this point where i have resigned myself to the lesser of two evils - running in a torrential downpour as opposed to the mill; a snazzy lexus pulls up beside me and i'm a little creepd out, but i think hannibal lechter doesn't drive a lexus, i'm not going to get tossed into the back of this car & chopped up into tiny bits. so then i think maybe its a friend. but i don't have any lexus driving friends. the window rolls down, and a woman pops her head out, and says "now that's dedication". and all i can do is laugh. and smile. the window goes up & she drives away. and her comment keeps me going until the downpour stops. and then there is another downpour, but i am too far into this run now. but it clears up and i'm thrilled when i hit the hills because it just means i am 4 miles from home. i did it. mother nature could not force me onto a treadmill today. she tried though.

and i think, is it dedication? or insanity?
i'm leaning towards insanity.

close call on a closeout

i was this close to falling off the wagon.
like, the smallest unit of measurement close.

so i'm at big lots.

and i'm hungry. and this is the kiss of death. to be hungry.

and i am standing in line,

when what to my wandering eyes should appear,

but my most favorite candy in the whole wide world.

on sale. and i never see this candy anymore.

and in my past sugar-laden life, when saw it, i'd buy it. cause i think its' almost extinct.

my god. it must be a close out. cause i'm at big lots. that's what they do, right?

there's a chance this is it. the last chuckles i'll ever see.

i am in week four of no sugar. week four people. and i thought i was doing well. but its chuckles.

so i wonder, for way longer than a moment - what would happen if i bought it. and then if i bought it, what would happen if i ate it. no one had to know. i didn't have my cell phone. couldn't call a sponsor. and this assumes that i wanted to.

i picked it up.

i put it back down.

then i picked it up again.

and this is where i saw the slippery slope that it could be. i'd start making excuses about why i needed to go to big lots. i'd be in the closet, eating chuckles. soon i'd be on the streets, in and out of rehab. what happened to mommy? she went back to the sugar kids. chuckles were on sale.

i put it down.

so that brazen announcement i made a few posts back?

that one where i got all cocky and said:

don't mess with me sugar, i am over you.

not so much, i guess. shit.

but. i am still on that wagon.

tuesday

the alarm goes off.
i look at it. 5am.
and for a moment,
i cannot even fathom why i set the alarm for 5am.
and then i remember.
its tuesday.
if its tuesday.
its mile repeats.
so i get dressed.
and head out into the dark, cold morning.
my dollar magic stretchy gloves from krogers did nothing to keep out the cold. twenty-five degrees of cold to be exact.
they couldn't even pretend to be warm,
to offer any semblance of comfort.
not sure what i expected from gloves that cost a dollar.
every single repeat sucked a little more than the previous one.
a slow, and slow being the operative word here; sad, pathetic deterioration in performance.
as if there was any to begin with in that cold.
but at least they all sucked consistently.
they all hovered around the same sad, pathetic pace.
so i had that going for me. consistency.
tomorrow, maybe i'll wait till the sun comes up.
and wear warmer gloves.
bring a better attitude.
they can't all be good. and i know this.
but still. i have a hard time with it.

happiness is

seeing the banana that was stashed for you on your friends' car in their driveway, at mile 10 of a 17 run. just waiting for you. and you run and eat it with a shit eating grin on your face cause its mile 10 of a 17 mile run and you feel great.

it's hitting the hills. and feeling stronger at the top than you did at the bottom of all 13 of them, kicking their proverbial hilly asses. instead of the other way around. i didn't want to die at the top of maple. i was too busy smiling to want to die.

it's the perfect food. taken at the perfect time. never feeling hungry, spent, crampy or sore. never wanting the run to end.

aside from the fact that i felt like a pack mule, which is something i just need to get over, cause its' obviously working for me. and aside from the fact that it was raining, the entire time; and if there is one thing i hate about running, its running in the rain.

everything else outweighed those two minor details. long run experiment number three was just perfect. a perfect long run to make up for a week of tough ones. love how it all comes around sometimes.