Running In Place

And today it was!! And it was also 32F/0C!!!! Ok, maybe I’m overreacting to the warm weather – 2 days in a row no less – but I figure any day I get up and my outdoor thermometer doesn’t say -20F/-29C is a happy day – and it’s been a good 2+ weeks since that’s been the case.

So, how great is this: I go to one of the trails, haven’t been there is a couple of weeks any way – this is the trail where I lost my car key back in August – and what do you suppose is clipped to the post at the trailhead with a clothespin but a Neon (as in Dodge) key!! So, thick me, I’m walking towards it and thinking “why would someone just leave their car key like that, didn’t they have any pockets?” Sloooowly the light dawns and I grab the key and run back to my car where I am delighted to find that the big black key on the rusty ring opens the door to MY Neon!! Happy little dance follows! Isn’t that something!!

My mood was ever so slightly soured when I went back to the trail and found that the snow was too deep, too rutted from snowmobiles, and not hard packed enough to run on. I went maybe a tenth of a mile before I bagged it and during that time I had to step off the trail and into the calf high snow to get out of the way of 6 snowmobiles. On the No Motorized Vehicles trail this is. Anyway, I drove to the village nearby and just took off running around town. It was a beautiful day, sun shining, lots of people out walking around, not much traffic. I made it a point to run up a few gradual inclines and was able to keep my pace pretty well and not feel all worn out so that was encouraging. 3 miles all told and just a really brilliant day to be out.

27 flippin’ degrees (F/-3C)!! How long’s it been since we had that kind of hot MJ?? Plus, sunshine and very little wind to boot! The fine weather was reflected in the number of people I met out on the trail today – dog walkers, snowmobilers, and some X-country skiiers. We all greeted each other with big smiles and hearty hellos!

I did intervals for the first time today – cute little baby intervals that I was surprised to find I enjoyed. I warmed up for a little more than half a mile, then sped up for 1 minute, followed by 2 minute recovery x 4. I didn’t speed up to all out gasping and struggling, but to a faster pace that I knew I could hold steady for a minute, but maybe not much longer. For each of the 1 minute intervals I consistently traveled one tenth of a mile. When that was done I ran another mile and a quarter at a comfortable pace before I ended up back at the parking area. So, yeah, that was something a little different and kind of fun – I will definately work that into my weekly routine. I wonder, as I progress, should I increase the number of intervals or the time of each interval, or maybe kind of alternate the increases? Or should I just continue with the same time/repititions till I can do those to some undetermined higher level of fastness and then worry about increasing stuff? Such choices – who knew!

Coming next week….I plan to run up a hill.

When running is an imperative…
Yesterday, by the time my work day was finished, I was so full of negative, frustrated, cynical feelings that all I could think was ‘I have to run.’ I came back to the office to change clothes and people kept coming up to me with their various shit, and I kept saying – ‘I’m going for a run.’ And they kept saying ‘good for you’ but they kept chasing me around the building with their various shit till I could finally escape out the door (the weather was cold so I knew they wouldn’t follow me outside!). So I ran around the village for a couple of miles and when I was done, I was empty of that ugly stuff – not spent, not happy or exhilerated, but not sad and weighed down. I just was. And that was a good place to be at that time.

What makes me sad…
Today it took me and 3 men to transfer a very obese lady from her bed to a gurney and try to navigate her out of her house and to the hearse. While with her family later, I spent some time with her granddaughter who is a young teen and possibly even more obese.

I had hoped this wouldn’t happen…
I’m getting sucked into American Idol yet again.

E-mail from American Heart Association website (for Utica chapter)…
Dear Lara,
Congratulations to Lara Cook who raised the most money last week for our on-line fundraising contest. Lara will recieve a gift from the American Heart Association along with a chance to win the grand prize of either walking or running sneakers donated by The Sneaker Store.
So thanks to all my awesome sponsors – how cool would it be to win new sneaks!!! You’all rock!!

64 days left…
Till I’m not a hospice nurse so much any more. I agreed to stay on per diem because it’s so hard to just turn away from it all, but I think I am going to spend the summer working in a restaurant or on a farm or someplace in the Adirondack Park. Physical labor and sunshine are what I’m craving.

By this time next month…
My son will be 15 years old, and is already reminding me that it will ‘only be a year’ till he’s driving. Is there really any way to prepare yourself for that???

Props…
Mark’s daughter, Cassandra, was the creative force behind my new header. I love it!

good night..
ugh, why can’t I sleep?!

I’m going to grouse about the weather. Yes yes, it’s true that a short time ago I was complaining about the unseasonable warmth of the season – that I felt it was the cause of alot of tenacious and debilitating GI and respiratory infections, and that I wished it would get and stay colder. Well evidently from my lips to God’s ears cause I got what I asked for in spades! This entire week has been sub-zero (F), and the windchills sub sub-zero. I mean high temps this week have been 0F/-18C, and the windchills in excess of -35F/-37C.

Call me a wuss but I have not gotten alot or running in over the past several days. There is just not enough silk, fleece, Polartec, or nylon in my arsenal to dress in such a way as to make -35 the least tolerable. That is the kind of cold that is physically painful and it always finds its way in through some tiny opening in your clothing and soaks into your skin and makes your bones freeze to the marrow. See I tried, and I’m still traumatized. I sure hope all those SOB viruses that have been plagueing the area have as fragile a constitution as I do As for the silver lining, next week’s temps in the teens and 20’s (F) will be a welcome heat wave!

So I sat down for a little while with blank calendar pages to figure out my running plans. I worked on a schedule to get me from here to my 5 miler in early March. Between that run and the Boilermaker I’ve got a little while in which I will probably do some 5K’s, maybe a 10K – then, in early-mid May, I’ll have to start initiating some training schedule for the 15K. There’s alot of different options for this around here as it is such a big deal in the community: there are paid training programs, one posted on the Boilermaker website, lots of developmental runs put on by the local running clubs, even a plan put on by the local TV station where they choose a bunch of first time racers, provide their training, and follow them throughout on the news. Plus, there’s any 10 miler training program found on the internet or in a book. But what about this – I actually kind of favor the RW 1/2 Marathon Plan. It seems like a really managable plan, I should reasonably have the base to begin it in May, and I kind of like the idea of being over prepared, though not necessarily over trained. I guess I spent so much of last year in stasis that I am really wanting to excel (within reason) this year. The Boilermaker is my big deal focus right now but after that, why not a 1/2 marathon in the fall or even Jeff’s proposal regarding the Rock-n-Roll (1/2) Marathon in January. So am I being a little silly? Should I wait till I have a 1/2 on deck before I train for a 1/2 and just focus on a 10 mile plan? Will I be better prepared and possibly perform a little better if I over shoot a little with a higher mileage plan? Maybe I should just chill out and run my first 5 miles before I start planning a Gumpian run across the continent. Just contemplating it all.

For the first time in 20 years I am cat-less. Poor old White Paws died on Tuesday afternoon while I was stuck at work teaching a class. I am glad that my husband and son were home with him. Brian called and said “he’s curled up in the litter box and taking a breath about every 30 seconds. What should I do??” I said “take him out and hold him on your lap and say good-bye because he’ll be gone very soon.” So Brian and Randy sat on the bathroom floor with old man kitty and scratched him behind the ears and talked to him till it was finished. He was 19 years old and the last of 5 cats who had all lived with me since I was that same age. I found he and his brother, Gray Paws (they were known collectively as the Paws Brothers), as little kittens in a P&C parking lot at 3 AM and took them home to join Kelly Jean and Eddie (Lydia would join us later). As the years went by and the others died along the way, I was worried that poor old White Paws would be lonely but it turns out he was born to be an only-cat! He took full advantage of the many free laps to choose from and the open spot on my pillow at night, right next to my head. I would put my ear up against him and listen to him purr, and he would do pookie in my hair (and any of you who have had a cat know just what pookie is ). He loved the sound of his own voice and would often go down in the basement or way under the shelves in the closet where he would have superior acoustics for his rrowwr rrowrr serenade. In the 3 years between Lydia’s death and his, he was king – he was young at heart, he didn’t take shit from the dogs, he was always on the wrong side of a closed door. He was not aloof, he always had his heart on his sleeve and was never stingy with his affections. Even towards the end (he had been declining for a couple of weeks), he never slunk away and hid like animals sometimes do when they are sick or dying – he always wanted to be where we were and even when he could barely walk, he would always find his way to a lap. When he could hardly lift his head, he still purred. I am grateful that I had these last 3 years with him alone, I got to know and appreciate him better than in all of the 16 years before. He was a good cat. I don’t think I even fully realize yet how much I am going to miss him.