About Commitment, Shock Waves and Getting Soaked

The title is a pretty good summary about this weekend's activities! ;-)



Commitment

I have been talking about it for a while... Set a goal... Changed my mind. But I still had it in the back of my head to do a half marathon and I wanted to do it soon. Why I don't even really know, but it just seemed to me, that with a goal like that, it would make me work on my running... Hopefully make me a better, faster runner with more endurance. Hopefully get me in a shape that an Olympic distance triathlon next year with a decent time doesn't stay a pipe dream. Now that Terry has been battling a knee injury for the last four weeks, he most likely won't be able to run the marathon that he planned on in Charlotte on 12/12. So he was also already talking about the next possibility to do another marathon. We needed a venue with a marathon and a half far enough out for me to start building and so we decided on Myrtle Beach. We talked about it, I even hired a coach a couple of weeks ago, so things got serious. But on Friday we closed the deal. We signed up. No turning back anymore. We are committed! (They don't do refunds! :-)

That was all I did on Friday, that was sports related... I really did enjoy my rest day... Thanks for asking!

Shock Waves

Yesterday, I had a bike ride on my plan. It was a gorgeous day, so of course we decided to go outside. We haven't been to Donaldson Center in a while so we ended up going there. I have to say that I underestimated the temperatures and had one layer to less on me up top. But what can you do, you just start pedaling and hope that you warm up. Which I did... At the end of the first loop, I felt fine even if I would have still preferred to have a little more fabric on me. Halfway in my second loop I hit that rough piece of road that sends little shock waves through the body and just in general shakes you around a little. Under normal circumstances that wouldn't really bother me, but then I noticed that me toes froze in the meantime. The shock waves due to the road wasn't a big deal, but the vibrations that I felt in my toes made me cringe. But fortunately, that is only part of the road and as soon as it got smoother again, I was back in the game. It's really weird how my toes go dead first, especially since I only had half gloves on and my fingers felt great. After three loops around Donaldson center, I called it a day. But I was glad that we got the chance to ride outside in the sun.

Getting Soaked

Today, I wasn't this lucky. 2 miles into my run it started coming down... BAD! My own fault, if I hadn't procrastinated all afternoon, I guess I would have been fine, but no. 10 minutes after it had started raining hard, I was soaked... soaked... my clothes were not able to take on any more water. If I remember correctly than this was my first rain run EVER. So far I was always lucky that it subsided to a drizzle or light rain by the time I headed out OR I just bagged the outside run and opted for the treadmill. But honestly, I rather run in the rain and get soaked than spend an hour on the treadmill. I got back to the house and left my shoes outside, peeled off all my layers and left them in the sink before I headed into the shower for a long hot soak. I didn't realize how cold I was until I felt my hand and legs hurting from the hot water... But fortunately it didn't take long to warm up.

Hopefully, I will have more luck with my run tomorrow... We'll see! ;-)