I’m still running.

I’ve been busy as I can be for the past week or so. Had to be out of town for several days on some important type things (yes, that was the law thing and I’m ok ;) ).

I was in Chicago for a little bit. I had thought about trying to contact other RBF folks there like Mike Paus, but I wasn’t sure if I would be able to get away for any of the time at all. Very busy. I didn’t want to be some total stranger saying “Hey, come run with me.” and then not show up. So I opted to be a rude jerk and not contact anyone. :(

I did have a chance to run on Wednesday along the river. 6 miles. It was actually pretty nice. There were a million people out running, biking and rollerblading. It was like being in a race only with multiple events happening at once.

I had started at Grant Park near the “Married with Children” fountain and went north along the water. I did a few wrong turns along the sidewalks but eventually got over the bridge near Navy Pier, which looked like a cool place to go. I could smell lots of yummy, bad-for-you food.

Lots of boats along there in the marina and a big giant ship that looked like it hadn’t gone anywhere for a while. I think there was some movie where there was a boat like that.

Past there I came to a beach and there were Team-in-training (I think) people doing triathalon training. They were doing the swim part which seemed to stretch about two miles out and back. Everyone had little team in training wetsuits and swim caps. This was were I had to turn around so I didn’t see much else that day.

Friday I got my 13.2 mile run in. Yes, I added the .2 so that I could break my distance record The farthest I ever ran. Whoohoo!

This run followed up the same path, just much farther. There were even more people out on Friday. The bikers were just crazy. I was sure I was going to get hit while they were weaving in and out of the runners.

Under the bridge there was a guy playing saxaphone and it had this really cool echo that you could hear from a long way away. Nearby there was a woman handing out plastic flowers and everyone was ignoring her. I suspect that the flowers were not entirely free.

It was extremely humid on Friday and about 80F so the conditions were dreadful. Besides that, my run was in the evening and all my previous long runs were in the morning. The stomach didn’t like that, and neither did it like all the junk I had been eating along with the distinct lack of vegetables. About 4 miles into it, I got “the call”. Fortunately, there was a stone restroom right on the path. It was pretty much the filthiest place I’d ever been in which, in a way, was good because of how I left it (too much information?). Thank goodness for good ventilation.

There were alot of very cool “city” kind of things along the way. People playing chess on boards that were built into the concrete near a pavillion, people laying on the lawn having something to each. Lots more boats. Big beaches with posts for volleyball nets. Oddly, there was almost nobody on the beach. Occasionally, I’d come across one person out in the water, and I would daydream about stopping the dreadful run and jumping in the water. I passed a guy paying a dumbeck by the water. I don’t think he was panhandling or anything, just playing. It was a good beat for running with and had a cool sound as it carried over the water.

On the return I started really getting hot and tried to keep the pace easy. But then my stomach started churning again. I had passed the bathroom already at that point, so the last 3 miles were just awful. I thought I was going to fall over and die. I tried to drink a little Gatorade but that seemed to make it worse. I noticed that I would get the bad stomach feeling soon after I drank the Gatorade each time. I hope this isn’t a sign that I’m having trouble with this.

I must have looked bad too because people moved out of my way more readily this time. Maybe it was all the sweat. Fortunately, the walk back to the hotel was only about 15 minutes so even after the running stopped, I didn’t have too long to wait. 2:08, 13.2 miles.

So that’s all I have to say about that.

Just 3 miles easy tonight. I get to try out the Dazer if any of the doggies come out to play. Uh, but I just found out today that the manufacturer of the device also sells a colloidal silver generator. Argh. I’m beginning to have doubts. We’ll see what happens.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 16th, 2005 at 11:42 am and is filed under Food, Running. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.