Running Chick

I logged another 16+ mile week this week, capping it off with a 6-ish mile run this morning. My total for July was 71 miles. That’s my highest monthly mileage ever. The last time I was close to that was back in March 2008 when I logged 65 miles. They were not pain-free. Milestones!

Since I don’t have anything more useful to say, here’s a summary of the last week in arbitrary, strange and meaningless pictures.

My lunch. The pizza was made with more natural ingredients than the yogurt. Tasted better, too.

Hot rod and trailer on US41.

Somebody got fancy new running shoes.

The Great Lakes Research Center is coming right along.

August 14th, I get my HamSexy on.

It is not necessarily cooler at McLain Park but the trail sure is pretty.

I wanted to knock over this little rock tower that somebody painstakingly erected. I took a picture instead.

Lighthouse @ McLain Park. I did not go swimming.

New fire truck.

Old fire truck. I think it said 1919 on the front.

Probably part the reason why the first three miles of my morning run sucked so much. That and the million beers I had.

You know, I never really checked to see if anybody was inside the wax building at the Tech Trails while I was narcissistically snapping pictures of my reflection of the windows.

My new claim to fame: running on the new sidewalk by the Tech football field before it’s actually a sidewalk.

I picked up a giant crow’s feather to bring back for Kitty. I didn’t have anywhere to put it, so I stuck it in my hat. It’s the next fashion craze, I’m certain of it.

My new and bestest running partner who just completed week 3 of the Couch to 5k program and is already faster than I am.  What a booger.

We should have followed them to see what was going on. It looked like it might be fun!

I discovered that some streets in my neck of the woods that exist on maps, don't really exist in the real world. Before I left for my run tonight, I had a nice little course mapped out using mapmyrun.com that wasn't just an out and back.  I hate out and back runs, I find them to be utterly boring.  This course went out, cut down, and wove it's way back to my place.  I was looking forward to it. 

So, I get to the spot where my cut-down street is supposed to be and there's nothing there but snow and trees. I thought maybe this was one of the streets that was too steep to keep open in winter - I discovered another one of them on one of my carefully planned out runs last year, which caused an major mid-run route adjustment (so annoying!) - but it actually turns out that there is no street there anymore.  It probably was there years ago..from the size of the trees, we're talking many years...but now it's just been reduced to a narrow path through the trees down to street below.  I suppose I could have taken the path, but getting to it would have required scaling the 3.5' snowbank in front of it.  No thank you.  So, it was just a boring out and back for me.

Besides disappearing streets, this run came with the extra challenge of some lake effect snow!  I don't mind if the snow hits me in the face, but I can't handle when it gets in my eyes.  I'm contemplating purchasing some sunglasses with a few different replaceable lenses.  They're pretty expensive though, so I dunno.  I guess I'll continue to contemplate.

Speaking of the weather, it hit 30 degrees today.  Since I dressed for 20 degree weather, I was sweating my butt off.  I'm going to have to start tracking gear vs. temperature now.  Grr.  The warm spell also caused some portions of the roads to be really soft and squishy, which means virtually no traction, even with my YakTraks on.  I love my Yaktraks, they work great, except in soft, squishy snow.  My quads were really burning when I got back.

Oh, and just in case I haven't bitched about enough things in this post already, I'm noticing that my little three week bout with the sinus thing really had an impact on my fitness level.  I'm seriously huffing and puffing my way through these measly little runs, unable to even come close to the pace I was running in November.  I know it'll come back in time, but it is rather frustrating.