VICTORY!

Today was a day of little wins.

Miracle of miracles I ran my first sub 12 minute mile. I am 100% sure it was due to the fact that I had zombies on my ass twice in that span of time. But hey I’ll take it. I actually had a bit of a mini freak out when my gps app announced my time, just as I was passing an older couple going the opposite way. They were treated to me jumping in the air and pumping my fist, and wearing an expression so stupidly happy it bordered on the absurd. I’m sure they thought that I had escaped from the loony bin abut at that moment I really couldn’t have cared less.

 

I actually went a full four miles without walking, granted it was still at my normal shamble/jog but this has been the longest distance I have been able to go without having to stop my trot to a walk. Granted the last mile or so was shambled out of a pure refusal to allow myself to have gone that far and end up walking at the end. Here’s the thing I found about setting a good pace, for me at the least the key is finding a song that you can really rock out to and lose yourself in it. It takes away the fatigue and really allows you to soar. I actually found myself singing along like a loon half way through when “come on feel the noize” came on. I’m sure the walkers on the trail thought I was a crazy person.

 

Speaking of music, I have had in my running play list a dubstep Lost Woods  by Ephixa along with several other mixes but it had yet to come up. Then a strangely appropriate time it came up.

oh you have got to be kidding me

 

I have to say there is very little more surreal than running through a landscape while listening to a song seemingly designed for it. I may as well have had a master-sword on my hip and a shield on my back. A little bit of geeking out apparently goes a long way with me, perhaps gamifying this running thing could work in the long term.
Weirdness upon weirdness I emerge from the trail to be greeted by what I can only assume is an AARP brigade with their equally old cars. None of them were there when I arrived and there was no indication that just such an event was happening that day, I would have parked a ways a way had I known.

 

 

Side note: when a exhausted runner politely asks you to move because your blocking her car move. I had to practically hit a centenarian to get him to vacate his viewing space.

In conclusion: running fast rocks, people suck.

-THR

 

Inconsistent Running

Wow, how long has it been kids? Almost a month? Yeah it turns out that I’m not particularly good at keeping up with either actually running or writing about it. So like the procrastinator I am I blamed my lack of interest in running on the fact that I no longer have access to the lake house from Location, Location, Location  weirdly enough the people who actually paid for the place want to use it in the summer. How inconsiderate of them.

So I wallowed, and bemoaned my lack of awesome scenic running venues, running through my city is just no fun. It also doesn’t help that my house is situated near a devil hill which kills any enthusiasm within the first five minutes. Until as I was complaining to a friend he said

 

“you know there is a lake like twenty seconds from your house right?”

 

…..

 

“no”

 

Turns out they were right there IS a lake with an honest to god running trail (26mi long!) not a ten minutes away from where I live. *Surprise* So making great use of my day off I grabbed my gear and found myself on what is apparently a really well known local land mark. Here’s the thing, running here was not only tolerable, it was fun. There is one big established trail that spans the full 26 miles but there are also those lovely little side trails with very little paths to connect them, the kind of place where you have to use little impromptu rock/branch bridges to get across.

 

 

I may have fallen in

 

It reminded me of being a kid on an adventure, music blasting through my ears I embraced the fun of not knowing where the hell I was, what I was doing or when I was going to get back to my car. Who needs little things like a trail map, or a GPS to let you know that you didn’t accidentally get yourself hopelessly lost? Certainly not me, in fact I was hoping that I might just run myself into Narnia or  Middle Earth. No such luck, but who can really complain when you’re running route now includes things like a drain pipe to run through?

 

Secret Tunnel!

 

Upon reflection it could be that the path to the left is going over the aforementioned drain pipe and I could have avoided it entirely. But where is the fun in that? I choose to run through the nasty drain pipe because adventure! Bonus: I found another race to run, a poster was stapeld to a bridge around two miles in, turns about the “Massabesic Mallard Madness’ crew really know how to do their marketing. Because hey, we’re clearly running this crap in our free time who better to run for a historical association? We’ll run for nothing but a race with a silly ass name.

 

you thought I was kidding?

 

 

Suffice to say I have found my new regular “day off” running spot. The trail is too long and too fun to run when I have to go into work. (I spent two hours there today) but with my schedule changing I may just come here more regularly. I even set a new distance record, six miles of a sad jog/walk/shamble down and only a million more to go.

 

 

 

 

Until next time folks!

 

-TGR

Location. Location. Location.

Ah the long fourth of July weekends, endless barbecues, family, friends, and in my case my roommates intolerable boyfriend coming for a visit. I needed to get out of town, fast. Thankfully I have a ready made escape that works like a charm every time king ding-a-ling comes a calling

 

It even comes with its own beacon.

 

 

So I packed up my car and drove an hour north to spend the weekend at the lake. The minute I landed at the house I realized that it was far far to windy for my normal lake activities, swimming, kayaking etc. So true to my goal of trying to find a way to love this devil activity known as running. I grabbed by shoes and came up with a game plan. Now i had never run up here before and unlike my neighborhood back home there isn’t a good looping trail or series of roads for me to follow. Its one road in and out  not a lot of room for creative mapping of a route with this one. So I opted to take two episodes from the fantastic zombies run! app (which truly deserves a post of its own) and see how far I could run through one episode turn around from there and use the second episode to run the same route back.

 

I mean It wasn’t an unmitigated success when you travel to get a change of scenery you kind of expect a bit of a WOW moment when taking in the landscape from foot. Don’t get me wrong, those moments did happen, but the vast majority of my run consisted of the slightly less thrilling scene of the turnpike.

 

 

Not exactly a stunning view.

 

 

Visuals aside the run was actually surprisingly pleasant-ish. I think getting away from the same old routes that I’m used to running back home was a good break, normally after a 1/2 mile or so I start to do a bit of a weeze and am generally reduced to a slow shamble jog/run combo around mile 1 (if I make it that far) I don’t know if it was the change in elevations or the lack of ginormous hills around the lake but I was able to go around a mile and a half before the experience became truly painful. I was also weirdly impressed with how far I managed to run, perhaps my sense of distance is just naturally way off but I never expected to go as far as the one grocery store in this small town. (I checked once I got back, its only a little under two miles away, but hey I was impressed at the time!) but I passed it before my first episode was over, and then I spend the rest of the run wishing I had thought to bring cash to get some water.

 

NO WATER FOR YOU UNPREPARED IDIOT

 

Next time I guess…  Overall the one hour run was only four miles long giving me a very slow 15 minute mile but you know what coming back to the cabin and being able to jump into the lake directly after the run made it so much easier to get back, some thing to look forward to.  Maybe its not so much how you run but where you run that makes a difference in how tolerable the experience is.

 

I mean, pretty hard to be grumpy looking at this.

Why Run Grumpy?

Here is all you really need to know: I hate running.

Like really, really hate running. I’ve tried it plenty of time, bought the shoes, tied them to my feet and slowly shambled down the road with a permanent scowl on my face. I finish my trek around the neighborhood a short distance but it takes me such a long time. Sit down and wonder why the hell I thought it was a good idea in the first place. For the life of me I can’t achieve the happy gait of those insufferable stock photos. You know the ones.

I mock your pain

 

Yes, those. No one should be that happy when running.  When people tell me that they like running, how super fun it is, the euphoria of the runner’s high, and the sense of accomplishment from finishing a race. I whisper liar to myself. There is no earthly way this person is telling me the truth, surely running for them is as an excruciating experience for them as it is for the rest of us mere mortals. But they persist with their allocations of enjoyment, some even go so far as to insinuate that there was a time where they disliked this as much as I do now, that there is a corner to turn and suddenly its not just tolerable but fun.

 

The thing is I want to like running, I see people trot pass me like some sort of majestic gazelles with a big goofy smile on their faces. I want to be that majestic happy gazelle actually enjoying exercise. I want to run in those weird races where people chuck colored powder at my face (seriously though what is with that?), I want to run 26.2 miles voluntarily, I want to run happy.

 

Damn it I will make you love me.

 

The problem is I can’t for the life of me conceive of a way to alter my brain to make the processes of running enjoyable, besides running like the grumpy old coot that I am in the hopes that one day a miracle will occur. Like Pinocchio being turned into a real boy by the blue fairy, perhaps by acting the part the gods of running with take pity of me and turn me into a “real runner” . Here’s to hoping that my wish comes true, and if I figure out an easier way in the meantime I’ll be sure to let you know.

 

-TGR