Cross Training Anyone?

Core stability is very important. We should really look into some additional activities.

Hat tip to Maddie for finding this one. She is a wiz on the internets.

She's going the distance

However, she is not going for speed, especially not in the last .7 miles of the run.

I guess the pacesetter felt like we were off on Saturday because all of the sudden we were all sprinting to the finish. And it waren't pretty. I am not sure I am recovered, as evidenced by my run of the ol' 4.1 loop yesterday.

For many running is therapeutic (usually I count myself among the many). Still, some days it is just you and your crazy. Yesterday my crazy was fixated on the fact that my shirt was too short.

I hate short shirts and I cannot lie.

For something like 40 minutes I wanted my shirt to be longer. I should work on letting go. Maddie gets kudos for letting go, even if it means she is now freely associating with criminal elements.

Seriously?

Two dates. Two guys on probation. Seriously.

While I am appreciate the increase in my previously low store of bad dating stories, having to date felons to get them? Not so much.

Crazy Tired.

Or more acurately, crazy and tired. So first the crazy. As part of my ongoing attempts to become less of a committment-phobic nut (and of course to amuse my friends) I am allowing myself to be matched up with random dudes and sent off to various bars about town with minimal information and no idea what said random dudes look like. It's actually called Crazy Blind Date. For a reason.



Date One: Ex-drug dealer. Seriously. Super interesting (did you know there were conventions?) but um, not really my type? I'm pretty sure he came to the same conclusion when I mentioned I had a favorite cookbook that was neither published by High Times nor anarchists.



Tonight's Date: Does not drink. This could be trouble as I am much more interesting and attractive if you are loaded.



And now the tired. We ran 5.7 miles on Saturday, with lots of hills. I highly reccommend starting an argument about whether running skirts are the patriarchy's attempt to reimpose feminine roles on athletic women somewhere in Mile 1- it really makes a run go by faster! I think the combination of actually running regularly and running longer distances is just draining me. I'm exhausted and can really feel it in my muscles and joints. Hopefully my body is going to adjust, or I am going to have to go to bed at 7 pm by the time we're running 8 miles.



Miles this week: Lots! 3 Thursday night with Leah, 2 Friday morning with Sarah, and 5.7 Saturday morning with both.



Possibility I will fall asleep mid-date tonight: 95%

pork tacos and colt mccoy

any chance that our little 3 mile jog today actually took care of the pork tacos from Angie's that I ate for lunch? doubt it. they are, after all, wrapped in in the equivalent of oversized soft fritos.

so the almost celebrity sighting was a faux colt mccoy. I got pretty fired up about it even though he isn't having the best year. maddie was certain it wasn't him because she thought he was too small. I'll have you know that this guy was easily a half-foot taller than any of us and my guess is that he was about 220 (this was my guess based on his likely ability to crush teeny T-Bone who weighs in at about 180). For the record, Colt is 6'3", 205 lbs...and it wasn't him.

Women Who Run With the Dogs

I don't have much to say, I just really wanted to use that title. It was 56 this morning, which make the running itself easier, but the getting out of a warm bed much much harder. Maybe it's the joy of running in cool weather, but I think we're actually getting in shape. Seriously! I guess we'll see on Saturday , when we're supposed to run 6 (!) miles. Oof.

Miles: 3

Total dogs: 2 (Millie and Ramona)

Dogs per runner: 1

Times I almost tripped over a dog: 2

Times Sarah almost tripped over a dog: 1

It is nice to have dogs along as they're very distracting and you are able to forget for whole minutes at a time that you still have a mile and half to the Mopac bridge.

Fall! Fall! Fall!

Best two words in the English language? COLD SNAP! (OK, they're acutally "breakfast taco," but that's how excited I am about cooler temperatures.) Poor non-morning person Leah had to endure an 8 am run with two morning people, but she had her revenge at the track. You wouldn't have to waterboard me, more than 25 yards of walking lunges and I would falsely confess to pretty much anything. (PSA Digression: We all know torture, in addition to being morally wrong, doesn't acutually work, right? And that techniques like waterboarding were developed by totalitarian regimes under dudes like Pol Pot and Stalin to elicit false confessions, not the truth, right? Well, now you know.)

So Sunday; good run, good drills, good tacos, good weather.

I will let LC and SKT give you the details (and tell you about our celebrity almost sighting) since I am currently blogging only to put off work.

Lone Loops

Frankly, we've all let M. down. She is the only one posting. Shame on us. I need to expand my idea of "the post". Just because I haven't been running, and nothing particularly funny has happened recently is no reason not to post. So, I will take this opportunity to pillage another post and suggest that should we ever take this idea on the road (which is quite a clever pun), we spend some QT in San Francisco, where we are bound to see some interesting stuff. This gentleman's entire outfit was made of fruit loops. He also had lone loops stuck to his head. While I was not running when I snagged this, I was walking hills briskly, which should count for something.

Don't You Let that Deal Go Down

I'm afraid that you, faithful reader, are falling down on the job. When I don't post for long periods of time, it's because I am not running and you are supposed to pelt me with comments and email telling me to get my lazy ass out the door. I publicly humiliate myself for your entertainment, you harass me into running; that's the deal.

One of the reasons it is not a good idea to take about 2 weeks off is that starting again is painful. By the end of my run today I was both vaguely nauseous and so tired and weak it was an effort to turn the car wheel and leave the parking lot. Seriously. Also, ipod shuffle mode let me down today, all earnest and slow tempo, no energizing blasts of cheesy top 40. So at this point 4 miles is a struggle, I missed last week's 5 miler, and I'm not sure I'll make this week's (because if anyone thinks a Friday night party named "Beerfest" is condusive to a 7:15 am 6 miler with speedwork, well, you are clearly a good 10 years younger than I am.) Bad News Bears.

Miles: 4

Only on Town Lake: Guy with a strobe headlight on his bike. Fortunately I neither had a seizure nor began to boogie down.

Actual Age: 35
Age I Feel: 107

I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness

As much as I like running in the dark (it makes it harder to tell how far you haven't gone) I'm not sure it's the best idea. I think I get so nervous about tripping that I tense up and it really hurts my hips and back. Or it's hard to run again after you spend four days sitting on your ass for no good reason, but either way - ouch. And now I will be taking another four days off to go to DC, so next Monday should feel great as well. (Yes, I know I could run in DC, but let's be realistic about my level of self discipline here.)

Miles: 3

Only on Town Lake: Older dude working out in jean shorts, leather belt, and red bandanna tied Willie-style around his head. Jorts - awesome.

Best Band Name Ever: I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness

Best Album Name Ever: I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass (Yo La Tengo)

Awesome Person of the Week: Tedd's friend at Rilo Kiley who not only was fun to talk to but asked if smoking would bother us (outside!) AND when he bought beer included an unsolicited bottle of water for Emily (who had stopped drinking) - Congratulations, you are awesome and I'm really sorry I never quite got your name. Emily and I have you down for first round in the friend draft.

Purity Balls

Sarah and I did not have a very successful run Tuesday. There were ominous twinges from her IT band, and I just generally felt crappy, so we ended up walking most of our workout. However, I would like to note that we got out of bed and moved, which we're still considering an acheivement.

It was still one of the most awesome runs ever, because when we started driving home, we simultaneously heard a commercial on KGSR for this:

http://www.puttsforpurity.com/

Putts for Purity. Seriously. ( "He's going to have to use a gentle stroke to get this one in the hole, Bob." ) Why are you not selling t-shirts Putts for Purity, why?

Thursday miles: 3, very slowly

Muscle tweaked at kickball this week: left quadricep

How do it know?: Ipod shuffle mode, thank you for playing Prince right after the MoPac Bridge. If there was ever a time I needed Prince, it was then.

Only on Town Lake: I know you tried to hide behind a planter person doing yoga on the Lamar Bridge, but I saw you anyway. Also guy with white beared trimmed on the chin but with long side beard (what is that - the Fu Manchu beard?) , you are kind of awesome and I totally want you to dress up as rockabilly Santa and hand out presents to hipsters.

Proposal

There should be a humidity index for distance as well as heat.

Miles: 3

With Humidity Index: 4.5

Only On Town Lake: Nada. I think it's too humid to be weird.