So! Much! Running!

Hello!

An abnormally busy weekend means I'm posting two runs today, Friday's three-miler and Sunday's TWELVE-miler. Here they are!

Friday
Distance Run: 3.12 miles
Time: 32:30
Pace: 10:26 min/mil
Most Challenging Moment: slip-n-slide
Most Inspiring Moment: ????

This run is sort of a blur. I can remember it was quick, it was cold, I still didn't have headphones, and it was the beginning of a very long, very exhausting day.


Sunday
Distance Run: 12:02 miles
Time: 2:05:22
Pace: 10:26 min/mil
Most Challenging/Most Inspiring Moment: Listening to the wonderful episode of the Moth from Veterans Day, which was beautiful and wonderful and got me choked up while running / discovering that choking up makes it really hard to breathe, which is essential when you want to run

After the disaster that was our Friday/Saturday, which included Dave working until 2AM and then waking up the next morning with a 100-degree fever, and us being so exhausted by dinnertime that we spent an hour and a half debating what to eat, where to order out, what to get, and then finally deciding to just get groceries at the corner store and throw together some pasta and chicken,* I wasn't sure how the 12-mile run would go.

Actually, I was really looking forward to the 12-mile run, because I knew I could count on two hours where I didn't have a sick husband to take care of, an apartment to clean, a baby to entertain, or a puppy to train (not to mention a book to write, a manuscript to edit, one thousand other small projects to take care of...). It is a sad day when 2 hours of exercise is something you're excited about.

But even if our apartment wasn't a den of chaos, I think I would have still looked forward to the run. There's something very satisfying about putting on sneakers and just going. I knew my route, I kept my pace up, and all I had to do was run. It was pretty nice! It helped also that we've started sleeping in the guest room, so our darling angel's three-AM screams aren't quite so disturbing. I got a (sort of) good night's sleep, and then I was out the door.

New headphones! The woman on the box is nuts because these headphones are so terrible the tiniest jostle causes them to fall out. Finally, I had to wedge my iPhone into my sports bra to keep the headphone jack in place. Also, I could find no information on the "lifetime warranty" advertised on the box.

I discovered this weird shoe statue while I was running, and I have no idea what it means but I thought, "hey! shoes!" and so I took a picture. Does anyone know its story? The top part of the statue just looks like one of those concrete cylinders they put along sidewalks to keep cars from coming up.

Nice. I hope these symbols don't mean anything weird.

It's always surprising to me how easy these long runs feel, considering when I started I probably couldn't even imagine running anything over five or six miles. But it's nice! Am I secretly a long-distance runner?!? (ask me April 21)

*Despite coming together in less than 20 minutes, that meal was really delicious. It is my goal as a home cook to be able to make a sophisticated, complex dinner out of things that I discover in my pantry, and I think I did pretty well: lemon and pepper marinated chicken over fettuccine and fresh tomatoes in a white wine, butter, and lemon sauce, seasoned with fresh basil, rosemary, and oregano and topped with freshly-grated Parmesan cheese. Yum.