With all due respect to Karen Carpenter….(who sang so beautifully about Rainy Mondays)…<\/p>\n
It was a perfect Sunday – for staying home.\u00a0 Overcast skies…the threat of a shower (if a shower can threaten). A fresh pot of coffee brewing in the kitchen.\u00a0 Intriguing political guests on early morning ABC news programs.<\/p>\n
68 days to the Marathon.\u00a0 Fresh coffee.\u00a0 68 days.\u00a0 Cozy sweats and the love of a huge Golden Retriever keeping me on the sofa.\u00a0 68 days!\u00a0 Startling, since the last time I looked the countdown stood somewhere in the 85 day range.<\/p>\n
Enough.\u00a0 I dressed for a run.\u00a0 A damp, cool run.\u00a0 For me, the lover of all things hot and sunny, this would be a challenge.\u00a0 I actually wore a LONG SLEEVE tech jersey.\u00a0 Ten minutes on mapmyrun.com and I had a 13.1 mile run in the little zipper pocket that held my cell phone and a hard candy. \u00a0\u00a0 I decided if I was going to make the effort to get out, I would come back with a training milestone under my belt.<\/p>\n
I set out at my humble pace, and realized with surprise I was at mile 2 before I even turned my ipod (err…shuffle) on! Flipped the switch, picked up my pace to TubThumper (“I Get Knocked Down, But I Get Up Again” , followed by Lady Gaga)\u00a0 Off I went, familiar with the roads, the neighborhood and the mission.\u00a0\u00a0 Umm..why is it I have lived in\u00a0 this area for a lifetime (minus stints in Germany, DC, Florida, California) and never recognized\/appreciated the HILLS?!\u00a0 Seriously, after 40 minutes I all but LONGED for the flat Reservoir pathways.\u00a0 (In an effort to prove myself to myself\u00a0 I’m afraid I\u00a0 left dinner from the night before at the top of Prospect Street after a particularly hard push up to the top.\u00a0\u00a0 How crazy is it that I thought that was COOL and HARD CORE at the time?\u00a0 Clearly I’m reading too many marathon training blogs. )<\/p>\n
A mile later, a little drizzle, a little shower and BAM!\u00a0 Full Blown Rain!\u00a0 Before I left I decided to wear a hat for the first time all year, (ahem – a little token from the 2009 Marine Corps Marathon) and I’m glad I did as it provided some protection for my eyes – I had long since taken my sunglasses off since they were actually blinding me.\u00a0\u00a0 Choices, choices….my mind raced.\u00a0 Should I call for a ride home?\u00a0 What if I get blisters and ruin my feet for the next week?\u00a0 What if – umm…nothing, I had nothing else.\u00a0 Just concern about blisters.\u00a0\u00a0 Anyway, it didn’t matter because my phone\u00a0 died from the water logging it received. (Done.\u00a0 Dead.\u00a0 Bricked.\u00a0 Poop.) \u00a0 On the other hand, what if it rained on the day of the Marathon?\u00a0 I had to prove I could finish – even in the rain.\u00a0\u00a0 The loop eventually took me close to home, and I actually debated the importance of finishing the whole route vs. cutting it short.\u00a0 Just then a a huge truck hit a more-huge puddle and I was showered with curb-side debris and mud…well, I took the second left instead of the second right and headed home.\u00a0 I logged 11 miles instead of 13.1\u00a0 My time was slow(ish).\u00a0 It was hard.<\/p>\n
But I was really, really, really happy I did it anyway.\u00a0 I’m not a quitter, I’m just smart.\u00a0 And I love Sundays, even rainy ones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
With all due respect to Karen Carpenter….(who sang so beautifully about Rainy Mondays)… It was a perfect Sunday – for staying home.\u00a0 Overcast skies…the threat of a shower (if a shower can threaten). A fresh pot of coffee brewing in the kitchen.\u00a0 Intriguing political guests on early morning ABC news programs. 68 days to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-goals-and-motivation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6ZZxW-7H","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hnetalk.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}