Ah. How positively wonderful it feels to be sitting on this amazing mattress, under the world's greatest down comforter. Despite the fact that my comfterbility* factor has been sacrificed.
Jamie and I knocked out 12.6 yesterday. We ran from my house on 9th and Pleasant to the end of the Boulder Creek Path at CherryVale Road and Baseline and straight on 'til morning. Which in this case was the intersection of Baseline Road and Public Road in Lafayette. Let me tell ya, folks, this one was a doozy.
There are certain things that often come up when preparing for a run. Certain questions a person has to ask him/herself in order to be sure he/she is in the best possible condition to run for 2+ hours. Such as:
- Am I hydrated?
- Do I have a route planned?
- Am I wearing my elbow pads?
- Does my outfit correspond with current weather conditions?
- Is there a bathroom/rehydration area along the route?
To each of these questions, I responded with an enthusiastic "you betcha!" All of these, that is, with the exception of the last.
About half an hour into the run, I found myself sliding down a little hill into a kind of tiny ditch and over a chain-link fence. Who am I kidding? It was most definitely a moat. And not a fence at all! That was a fire-breathing dragon. I swiftly leap over the dragon and head straight towards the port-o-potty delux (I say "delux" because it was two port-o-potties in relatively decent condition, complete with a little outdoor water cooler and cup station).
As I exit the port-o-potty, I dash to the moat and quickly come to the painful realization that I have been attacked. I can feel the fire from that dragon directly on my bum. Yes sir, no mistakin' it. Right in the mother of all bee-sting targets; the epi-tomey** of a bulls-eye. My rump. So I do a little skip-to-my-loo and while I'm mid-air, I reach around the right side of my body and grab that sucker by the neck. Assuming, of course, that wasps have necks. I shriek and look to Jamie, helpless, a mere spectator of my mistery. And he jolts me back into action by reminding me that I might have landed on a nest. So I boogie right back over that dragon and hop across the moat and tackle the teeny hill. And I kept running.
Despite it being off to a bit of a rough start, this was a really pleasant run. I didn't fall into my rhythm until the second half, but from then on, it was smooth sailing. We were lucky with the weather, it was only about 80 degrees and overcast at 4:45 when we started running. I think my favorite part about these long runs with J is that every one feels like an adventure. And that is uplifting.
I cross-trained this morning before work with about 20 minutes of sprints and 30 minutes of strength exercises. So I'm feeling a little beat. But I foresee a goodnight's rest before a very long and busy week.
*My brother, Matt's brilliant terminanology for a rating system to evaluate a person's comfort level.
**My brother, Chris's very thorough pronounciation of a word which all of us fools must surely be pronouncing incorrectly.
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