To Run or Not To Run

It’s Tuesday again.

And that means an evening run with the Fleet Feet running group. I’ve been running in the mornings, but today I haven’t quite convinced myself that my legs are ready for a two-a-day.

Regardless of what I do during the day, I’ll be headed to the group run this evening. My initial thought was to do some hill repeats. Keep the mileage down but stretch the legs out.

Unfortunately, the morning got away from me and now I’m drinking a cup of coffee at 10 a.m.

Hmm…

I should probably take some advice from my great readers:

• Pushups
• Planks
• CrossFit

Or I could just bottle feed the puppies and clean the house.

How did you decide when you were ready to double up on runs or workouts?

 

Obstacle Run

The time change always throws me off but not quite like it did this year.

Somehow, my husband and I both slept through our alarms and woke up an entire hour late. By the time I fed the puppies, took my big dog out and got the coffee started, I knew my run was going to be a little off.

The weatherman preached all weekend about the high temperatures and humidity this week, so I had planned to get my runs in early before the heat and chance of rain.

No such luck.

I managed to get out the door (had to start from the apartment because I have a low tire on my car) by 7:30 a.m. I settled for an out and back with the last mile and a half on hills. The run went well for the first two miles or so until the chaos started.

I always hear little creatures in the brush next to the trails, but this morning I looked over to see an armadillo waddling through the grass straight for me. Thankfully, I was moving a tad faster than him and was able to avoid any awkward confrontation. Of course, I’m too OCD about my runs to stop and take a picture.

As I hit the half way point and turned around, I thought my post would just be about the armadillo, and then a decent-sized bug kamikazed my left eye. Again, running OCD would not let me stop to dig it out of my eye. Instead, I just started blinking and scratching my eye to get it out. I did manage to dig the bug out with my nail, but my contact had flipped up into my eye. Nothing a little more blinking didn’t take care of.

Able to see again, I prepared for the last mile and a half of long, steep hills. Convinced I would keep the pace, I over compensated and sped up through the hills and to the finish.

I crossed the street and walked up the stairs to my apartment just as the rain started to come down.

What kind of obstacle runs have you had?

 

 

Make It Hurt

I’m sure everyone was severely disappointed in the lack of posts this weekend.

The husband and I made an impromptu trip to Kansas City to visit our families, who were all in the same city for the same weekend. A rare occurrence.

Despite the 20 hours of driving in two days and some liquid abuse on Saturday night, I somehow managed to get my body to go for a couple runs.

Saturday morning I took advantage of the Missouri hills and knocked out a four-mile tempo run in 25-degree weather. I didn’t bring enough clothes, so by the end my legs were on fire from the hills but the rest of me was frozen.

Then Saturday night rolled around and I had a little bit too much fun thanks to Al’s Bar and Grill (my husband’s father owns a bar in Parkville, MO).

Sunday morning, I somehow pulled my hung over, sore butt out of bed and got in another 4-5ish on a beautiful trail next to the Missouri river.

These were probably two of the most painful runs I’ve been on in a while, but it was worth it. I felt so good eating at the fifth drive-thru on our way home last night because I knew I had pushed my body when it would have been so easy to lay in bed.