For the past 11 weeks, I've been doing runs during the week (when I've been able to peel myself out of bed) and never missing a long run on the weekends. But, the marathon has been far off in my mind and it's been easy to say I'm in training, never quite feeling that way. But as the mileage increases (15 miles this coming weekend), my life is starting to adjust itself around my training schedule. Friday nights, for example, I like to be in bed by 10 p.m., so I am rested and ready for a long run at 8 a.m. the next day. Saturdays, therefore, are dominated by pre-run preparations, the run itself and then post-run haze. I'm a big mess of jelly happiness on Saturdays: I barely drag my wobbly knees into the shower to wash the salt and road off, then manage to eat and collapse into bed. This past Saturday, it was 6 p.m. before I felt normal again, and then really never recovered enough to be a useful human being for the night.
Running also gets a lot more real when you are dealing with freezing temperatures. On Saturday, I woke up to stare with shock and horror at the weather report: 6 degrees with a wind chill of -14. It was 6 a.m. and I was clutching my coffee like a lifeline and blinking at wunderground.com. It just couldn't be. I was thinking back to a morning a few weeks prior, when it was 18 degrees out and, as I crossed the Mass Ave bridge to return to the Boston side, I had the unpleasant realization that something was wrong with my eyeball. The wind was careening through my body and whipped right through my left eye until I could feel my eyeball juice freeze. Ick. Frozen eyeballs are what separate the "Exercisers" from the "Trainers," at least that's what I think. If I just wanted a smaller ass, then running outside in sub-zero temperatures wouldn't really occur to me. So, when it came to running outside in even colder temperatures this past weekend, I had my reservations. Luckily, my roommate Nicole let me borrow her ski mask and I started suiting up:
- Two pairs of socks
- Two pairs of running pants
- Three shirts
- Two pairs of gloves
- Ski mask
- Hat
I looked like a ninja. I felt like a moron.
It did the job, though. I felt like I was running with a force field around me and the 13 miles went by pretty quickly. Because of the cold temperatures, the only other runners I encountered were those that were training for something. And a guy pulling two tires behind him (and I thought I was cool looking like a ninja...)We all nodded our heads at each other, happy in the knowledge that we were on some sort of hard-core spectrum in life. Also, realizing that we were all a special breed of moron to be running in 6 degrees.
Sadly, my eyeball still froze. Next time, I'll have to bring some sunglasses.
With 11 weeks to go, I am officially in it. I vow to write more, run more and raise more money!
No comments:
Post a Comment