Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Running Along a Bunch of Crap

Please excuse my language, I hope I'm not offending anybody.

Saturday morning, I was faced with a dilemma. For sure I couldn’t run with Cyndi because she’s too fast and my ankles couldn’t take it, and not sure if Sonja was going to be there so I could do the run/walk intervals with her, or for that matter, if anyone else would show up because of the recent rainy days in the past week. Nevertheless I ventured into the cold, dark but thankfully dry Saturday morning and made my way to our usual meeting place. After doing about a 5 minute warm up jog and not feeling too badly, I thought I could try doing the whole 12 miles while running for 4 minutes and walking for 1 minute the whole way. I sat back inside my car to keep warm and wait for anyone to show up and thankfully, Sonja did (a couple of other people did a few minutes later). After waiting a few more minutes and for my GPS watch to connect, we started our jaunt just when the sun was starting to peek out of the clouds. With all the talking we did and the sounds of cars and other things around us, I could hardly hear my watch beep alerting me to stop running and start walking for one minute. I had to rely on Sonja’s better hearing to alert me. Without her, I might not have been too bold to attempt 12 miles due to my ankles, and without me, she might have been misdirected because she had never run part of the course before. So we were able to help each other in that manner. The reappearing sun warmed us up mid-run and I had to take my gloves off. In the meantime we talked about her profession and I also asked her about her familiarity with some exercise equipment which functions I only have a vague idea of. We deliberately set a slow pace because of my ankle problems and also because she had not covered 12 miles in a few months, but needed to put in the miles to get ready for the Surf City Half Marathon two weeks hence. When we reached about the 9 mile mark, I asked her if she had ever run on the boardwalk before and she said she hadn’t, so we took a slight turn on Ocean Boulevard and hit the boardwalk. There were sand berms raised on the beach to protect the seaside homes from the waves that were higher than usual during the storms. What I didn’t expect on the boardwalk was having to negotiate a minefield of dog poop along the way. You cannot believe how much poop we had to dodge and swerve from that morning, over just approximately 200 yards of walkway. I guess people didn’t pick up after their pets while walking in the rain, which I can understand. It’s more difficult to pick up wet poop with a plastic baggie than dry poop. Another thing I noticed was that more people were walking their dogs throughout the course than usual. Even dogs can get cabin fever. I hope they didn’t all poop at the boardwalk at the same time. Can I say that this run was a bunch of crap then? Well, we both made it to the end, me with my bad ankles and her with the lack of training miles. But we couldn’t complain that we felt crappy during the run, because we were happy for having accomplished our goals for that day. Well done and good luck to Sonja for the Surf City Half Marathon, and good luck to me for my ankle rehab.

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