From One Extreme to Another

Last night I had a wacky dream. I was running a race in a large building, and I had to run into a room, chug a beer, sign my name in a book, then run to the next room. What that heck is that about?!?!

I ran another training run this morning for the Mountain Goat, which gave me a feeling of redemption after last Saturday's Virtual 10K. As I had suspected, I really did run farther than the Nike+ipod indicated, I ran closer to seven miles, in an hour and seven minutes. The only reason I figured it out was because after today's run, a fellow runner said his Garmin read 6.97 miles, while the Nike+ read 6.22.

And honestly, it felt like seven, it was a hard run. The steep hills begin at mile one, I charged right up, but I got hot, even though I had on a Tech shirt and shorts. It's crazy how much the weather has changed in a week, last Saturday I ran in 20 degree weather, this morning it was about 60 degrees, and right now, at five o'clock it's 89!!!!!

Around mile three I felt a bit of a stitch in my side, which was annoying because that hasn't happened in a while. So I slowed down, had some water and kept it at bay. I have to say how nice this one guy was whose house is on the route, he set up a water station in his driveway, and further up was another station, with a couple of cub scouts helping with the clean up.

At mile six, I was feeling tired, probably because I've been used to running in the cold, and this was my first warm weather run in months. I was wicked thirsty, we passed a Burger King, and I'm not a soda drinker but I felt like running right in there for a large, cold, bubbly Pepsi over ice. Then I made the mistake of looking at my reflection in an office building window, my form is terrible. I was hunched over, lurching along like, well, Lurch. But I decided to just suck it up, and get the last half mile over with.

So that run is done for another week, next week they are switching to a different section of the run, apparently these hills are very steep, but relatively quick. Whatever that means.

I wanted to give a shout out to two bloggers, whose giveaways I won last week! Thanks to Suzy at Running on My Time, for the Starbucks giftcard! It was funny that I won, since she won my book giveaway. Thanks also to Brad at Eat N Listen, for the Flavorwood BBQ Grilling Smoke cans. Brad is a food blogger who loves bacon, one of the first posts of his that I read was about a basket he made out of bacon....bacon!!

So now I can plan on sitting outside in the warm weather, drinking a latte, and smoking some meat.

Happy Easter and Happy Passover!