A Different Approach

My friend Laura is coming to visit this weekend.

This means a few things are going on.

1. A few days this week, I went to bed smelling of various cleaning products. The windex and laundry detergent scents were fine. But the one night of reeking of clorox was troublesome to my REM sleep.

I also may have had nightmares from what was collected in the dustpan after we moved the sectional couch.

On the flip side, I was super psyched to find 2 missing jenga pieces. My life is once again in balance.

2. The Trader Joe’s workers are sure to know my name as I’ve been there 3 times over the last week to pick up food for our weekend. And wine. Obviously.

However, I’m still going to drag Laura there again at some point because I thought more was on reserve. One bottle of wine will just not cut it.

3. My half marathon training long run was last night.

Yeah. On a Thursday.

Now I’m sure I could have snuck out tomorrow morning before Laura wakes up. Throw down a 10-miler, get home, shower, and have breakfast ready by the time she sits up and stretches and comments on how glorious the morning is.

But that would have been awful. An outting full of dance party shenanigans is planned for tonight and maybe even a trip to a favorited late night mexican spot. The combo of lack of sleep and 90 minutes of fitness would have made me a zombie for the rest of my Saturday.

Given the choice of that scenario or sucking it up and doing the long run on a Thursday?

I’ll pick Thursday.

And it worked out alright. Woulda been better if the trains weren’t delayed and I didn’t get home later than usual. But we don’t have to dwell on that.

We’ll just talk about the run.

After a long day of sitting in an office, it was rough getting into it. Yeah, I’ve run a little here and there after work, but that was knowingly attempting a mile or two. Not 10.

The brain takes a while to comprehend something like this. So the first 2 miles sucked a bit.

The next few were when I hit the lakefront trail. So I was busy trying to not get ran over by all the cyclists. That got me through a few more.

My best miles? The last 2.

10 miles were in the plan, but a range of 7-10 was going to be considered acceptable. We’ll be 100% honest on that one. I didn’t think I’d get the entire way through it.

However, after leaving the lakefront, I was in the zone and shufflin’, shufflin’.

This was the first time I felt really positive about this half marathon coming up in a few weeks. The last 2 miles were calm, steady, and decently strong. I can do this.

9.6 miles total.

With the crazy schedule I have, the after-work long run is a choice to be made more than once. At least it will work when it has to.

And now? I don’t have a thing to worry about come Saturday morning.

Well. Maybe one thing I’ll have to apologize to Laura about…

PARTY TIMMMMEEEEEEE!

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