5:09 a.m. - 2007-11-06
a quick catch-up
I hadn't put anything in here in a couple weeks so here's a few useless snippets. I was a little irked at myself for laziness in the last entry. I've run half a dozen times since then, most recently Sunday. I mostly just didn't want to lose any ground I've gained on this project and haven't really tried to push myself to any new ground.
I've never tried to put any pics in these entries before because:
(a)I didn't know how
and
(b)It's pretty hard for me to take any pics of myself while I'm staggering through this nonsense.
However, I did find a pic of me prancing through the horse poo at Farmdale on the event's website. I was actually visible in a couple others but unless you knew what I looked like it would be impossible for me to point me out. So I'm going to attempt to post one here and it will either work or not. If it doesn't work, would one of you grizzled veterans please show me the light?
Ok, so that either worked or didn't.
Sunday afternoon I headed for Kickapoo St. Park. It's about 30 miles east of me and has lots of good hills and trails. After my near massacre at Farmdale I thought it would be good to incorporate some hills into my routine once a week. Since I live in the flat lands, Kickapoo is the closest place I've got to accomplish that. I'd walked around the golf course earlier in the day so I'd had a little exercise. But it was such a beautiful
day, (sunny and upper 50's), I thought it would be a great day to go do a little work on their trails.
One thing I hadn't considered was that all the roots and rocks would now be obscurred by fallen leaves. I vowed to lift my feet and be acutely aware of anything that looked like it was going to trip me. This seemed to work fine. There was a river on the west side of the trail and lakes to the east side. It was scenic and lovely and many people were out taking advantage of the weather on the same path. It was wide enough to accommodate 2 way traffic easily. About 1.5 to 2 miles in, I came to a fork in the trail with a sign with an arrow to the left marked 'EASY' and one to the right marked 'HARD'. I was feeling pretty good so I chose the difficult path. I was anticipating lots of ups, downs and sidehills, which is what I got. However a more accurate sign would have said: "no one above 3 feet tall on the hard trail!" There were many low hanging branches and bushy shrubs making the trail sort of a limbo contest. I successfully ducked the big limbs and was doing pretty good at clearing out the little whippy branches with my right arm and then dashing through, except for once when a gust of wind caught an armload and just smacked the shit out of me. All these little things just slapped me in the face. I'm glad I was wearing sunglasses or it might have done some real damage. I took the 'EASY' path back to the truck. When I finished I was satisfied with my level of fatigue. I'd brought a dry shirt along with me and changed into that before running some errands on the way home.
I was a little surprised when I arrived home, went to take out my contacts, looked in the mirror and saw blood dried to my ear. Let's see if this works:
I'd been walking around like that unknowingly for about 4 hours. It would have been great for Halloween but...
What else? Oh, yes! I signed up to run a 10 miler the first weekend of December. It's on a Sunday, so I'll have a little sleep ahead of time. That sleep is always a good thing. That'll take me out a little further than before. Maybe I'll be ready for a half-marathon in January.
This next part is kind of embarrassing but it's true so I'll post it. Cardio-girl should quit reading right now. I already tainted her comments with this sort of thing before. She asked for it, but that's beside the point.
Whenever I'm out for extended runs, which for me is 5 miles or more, my nipples get absolutely rubbed raw. During the summer I would just run with my shirt off on those days. Now that the weather has changed, that's not really an option. In the past I've put bandages or adhesive tape over my nipples but the sweat seems to work both of those options off after 45 minutes. So...this past Thursday...I shaved little circles around my nipples to help the bandages adhere. I got some Curads as a lot of guys swear by these because they are stickier than Band-Aids. For moment this seems to work. Will it work as the runs get longer? I don't know. I've seen suggestions to wipe the area down with alcohol first to help reduce moisture. I may have to go to mole skin or duct tape. Hey, if it's good enough for NASCAR, it should work for me. Anyway, the shaved circles around my nipples was kind of crazy looking. So,(and you know where this is going), I just went ahead and shaved my chest. Let me tell you this, not only do I suddenly feel like there's a draft in the room even when I'm fully clothed, it feels really weird and creepy to have clothes against skin that hasn't really felt clothes for 30 years. OOOOOOOOGH!!! I'm getting the willies just typing it. With that note I'm getting off here. That was all way too revealing.
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