Oh where to begin? I've had, what has felt like some really bad, demoralizing runs this week. They were shorter mid-week runs. It's amazing after going on a long weekend run which feels great and you feel like there is no place to go but up from there, right? Then you go on a short mid-week run and for me this past week it felt like I was carrying bags of sand with me. The entire run just felt heavy and sluggish. I was pushing myself but just felt like even the first mile was a struggle. Usually, after the first mile things get into a grove and I feel better and I can really start moving, but I never felt that way. I found myself contemplating walking the entire way (and I would have if I just didn't take so long...I am impatient). Then on my second mid-week run, the same thing. I was planning on going out for five miles. By the time I had finished the first 1.5 miles I wasn't feeling my grove yet...grrr. I thought I had done things right since two days prior. I had hydrated, I hadn't eaten in several hours, this shouldn't be happening. I started off at a good pace, not too fast things should have felt great, right? Well, it wasn't. I actually started experiencing a tightness in my left calf and shin early on, which was highly unusual for me. I never experience that type of discomfort. I decided to ignore it and continue on figuring it would go away and loosen up. That did get better but the entire run didn't feel good. I ran through the same neighborhoods that I have run through in the past. I thought, should I run through that neighborhood where I fell and scraped up my knee and hand? The spot that has the jacked up street? The street that makes me angry at our effing Mayor (why can't you fix our damn streets? Didn't you claim during your campaigning that this was easy ... remember Candidates Gone Wild? I do.)? Perhaps not, because a run should be relaxing but that does make me think so that is what a run is for as well, to provoke thoughts. At any rate, this did ease my discomfort and misery in how I was feeling currently because it shifted my focus, albeit temporarily. I was running up a slight hill on Clinton which strangely made my tight calf feel better. It was raining ... or maybe it was showers. What's the difference between rain and showers? You're wet for both. At any rate. I tend to run on the street and a young woman ran, quite swiftly, past me the opposite direction, on the sidewalk - she appeared to be a teenager. At any rate, she was not a communicator. I looked in her direction: nothing. That's kewl. I'll keep plugging away, painstakingly, to myself. Seriously, why can't other runners, especially females offer some form of acknowledgment when you pass them? Granted if you don't see them that's one thing, but during the day, it's bright and we are on the same side of the road there is no reason to not give some head nod, a two-finger non-verbal 'hey'. I have better communication with elderly dog walkers.
Eventually, the run of misery was over. I did my best to do some hack stretching before I went in the house. Which I always feel funny about. Why? I feel like my neighbors are looking at my butt when I'm stretching on the sidewalk. But, I am stretching outside because I my muscles are more lose immediately after the run than when I go in because when I go inside, I'm likely to help get the kiddos ready for bed, read a book and so forth. By the time a stretch is in order, I'm ready for relaxing on the couch. Besides, have you tried stretching with an effing dog at your crotch? Not the easiest thing to do. So, I risk the neighbors and the sketchy apartment dwellers at the end of the block watching me stretch. And those apartments are sketch-eee. The kind of sketch-eee where weird women yell from their porch at kids for playing too loudly. Uh, go back inside and sleep off your drugs, crazy lady.
So, here's what is in order for tomorrow: I am hopeful I feel good; I'm planning on going for a 9-mile run. I have picked up some more of my glucosamine chondroitin which I had run out of so I suspect that may have been part of the problem with my challenges with my mid-week runs. I'm back on the juice so-to-speak. I am likely to say hello to a fellow runner if I encounter a friendly runner, although I am more likely to pass a friendly dog walker which is cool too.
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