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

 

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.