What????? Who is this girl? Does she not even care about being healthy any more?
Let me back up.
On Saturday I ran 10 miles in and around my neighborhood. I normally do my long runs on Saturdays for two reasons —
- If it’s been a long week it’s more fun to chill out on Friday and then rally on Saturday, and
- If something goes horribly wrong on Saturday’s run I have a “second chance” long run to use so I can stay on schedule
Truthfully, I have used #2 several times, but in the last few months the only times I ran on Sundays, I was either making up for a shorter weekday run or just shaking it out with people I don’t get a chance to run with often. Still, it’s a security blanket, I know.
This weekend I had no such because after long running (and showering and eating) I was heading up to Boston to visit my old friend J. We’d be too busy to carve out the time, so it was do work or go home.
Funny thing — I think I ran a little better under the pressure to get it done, which is not to say I went faster, but I was more determined. The 1000% humidity didn’t bother me till I got inside and discovered my very obvious sweat-lines and a bug drowned in my cleavage (sorry fellas!) My Garmin quit at 0.38 miles in, and I didn’t even think about going back to recharge, because I knew I just wouldn’t. At one point I told myself “Hey, it’s only 2 more miles. You’ve done 2 more miles a million times before,” a comforting staple of training self-talk.
And a man with a mustache said “Good work! Look at you now!” in the last .3 miles, so that was special.
Before I knew it I was curled up on the bus in my compression sox, eating trail mix before I fell asleep. On Sunday a part of me wished I had my running shoes, just to breathe a little post-rain air, just to get the cobwebs out. The last time I visited J. I ran from her apartment along the Charles River to Cambridge, just marveling at what my legs could do.
Instead we drove out to western Massachusetts, and I’m sure the place you live is pretty, but this has to be one of the top 5 prettiest places in the world. It was “Melancholia” beautiful out there. I think J. was alarmed that I kept saying “Ughhh, why is this not my life?”, “this” being “the part where I live in the remote mountains and eat Boursin cheese on baguettes and leave my cell phone off all day, and don’t get stuck on the hamsterwheel of thinking about my failings.”
But I don’t have to live there as long as I can visit.
