The Run From Heck, and the Dorky Running Wardrobe Grows!

So I have an exciting new addition to the dorky running clothes. I now have dorky running sunglasses. Previously, I felt these were quite unnecessary because I wear transitions lenses in my prescription glasses and they get pretty dark these days. However, I have realized I really can't wear my glasses when I run because they tend to bounce off my face. Likely at worst this would result in a lense getting scratched if they landed badly, but I admit I have images of them getting run over by a car or something, leaving me stranded, badly nearsighted, out somewhere in the back roads of my town when I don't have a very good sense of direction to begin with.

I have contacts. In fact I used to wear them basically all the time, until I attended law school and spent much of my time reading. They tend to irritate my eyes after a while, so I got used to the glasses again. I still have lots. They're a prescription behind how bad my vision actually is these days (but the lenses themselves, thankfully, have not expired). But for running, that's fine as it's mostly driving distances that are affected. So I figured, heck. Better to spend like nine bucks on a cheap pair of runny-no-slippy sports lenses than it would be to replace my glasses if something happened.

Running without some form of vision correction is quite out of the question. I have only slightly better vision than a blind person. Perhaps you feel I am being insensitive to the vision impaired by being flip. I am, in fact, accurately describing how nearsighted I actually am.* I am surprised I can find my way out of my bedroom and into my bathroom at two AM when I have to pee without ending up in Tuscon or something.

I got nifty little pink Ironman Girl sports glasses at Target. Okay. So they're not so nifty. They make me look like a deformed dragonfly. And I wore them out today, mostly to make sure they'd stay on my face.

Today, in what was quite literally the RUN FROM HECK.

I expected today's run to be a weather challenge, honestly. We were supposed to get heavy rain and strong, gusty winds, but it wasn't supposed to be dangerous if I got out early so I went, well, I'll just get out early. There's no guarantee the weather will be perfect at Disney, after all. I mean, it is in Florida.**

My first attempt to get out the door--when it was in the mid sixties and raining--failed. I had forgotten to charge both my iPod AND my Garmin. I can run without them. I refuse to do so unless there is somebody present to talk to and pace me. Yes, yes, probably it would build character. Still not doing it. So I went in and let them charge. I had a phone appointment, though, which meant I didn't really get back out until about one PM.

I checked the forecast before I stepped outside and I was a bit concerned because we were under a high wind warning. I was also assured the high would be something like 72. I decided to run around the block, just in case a tornado should appear or something and try to suck me to Oz.

HAH.

Wind? What wind? It was still, which was a shame about half the time, because it was exceedingly humid, so the air felt like it was trying to squish me. I felt rather as if I was running through jello, except hopefully the jello would have been cool and it was, in fact, eighty, not seventy-two. So I was not cool. I felt like I was running in a steam room.

Except, of course, when it was gusting up over twenty five miles an hour, and I therefore felt like I was running in a wind turbine.

I normally don't have to blackmail myself to stay out. Today I did. Toady it was "I'll just do one more interval. Well. No I'll do two because I'm more like two away from the house. Oh. and now it's breezy. Okay. So I'll do one more. Oh $#!% the wind stopped. But now I'm like two intervals away again."

I was drenched. I was hot. I was even slower than normal. I lost an minute per mile off both my run and walk speeds.

I am pleased to report I finished the workout and the dorky dragonfly glasses stayed on my face, and did not bounce off. But that was abnormally exhausting, man. I need a nap.

* I worked, as one of my many, many, many college jobs, as an optical assistant. This was a handy job to have as I am quite nearsighted. I used to listen to people with little -0.25 mild vision correction needs whine about being blind as a bat. I wanted to sock them, because at the time I was already more than a -6.00 in both eyes and it's only gotten worse; I'm above a -7 now and I'd have to check, but I think I might have cracked a -8 in my left eye. For the record, the "average" strength of your average myopia corrective lense is a -3. I am notable for wearing large, black frames. This is not because they are frequently trendy. This is to ensure I can see them if they are not on my face--if, for instance, they have bounced off from the sheer force of my running and are now laying on the grassy strip by the cocker spaniel leavings. Yuck! Yuck!

** I have a very good friend who's a native Floridian. His tales of running ten milers in high heat AND high humidity are frightening, and he's a dude, which means he can take his shirt off at least. I can't. Well. I could. But we already established I don't want to get arrested for public indecency. He has also never seen snow, I might add. Some day when I am a rich and powerful attorney I will fly him to Vermont in January so I can hit him with a snowball.

Tom, Jerry, and Alicia Run In Circles In Your Living Room

I was never a great fan of Tom and Jerry when I was a kid. I like cats more than I like mice, frankly, and I always thought it quite unfair that Tom worked very hard but never got to eat Jerry. Jerry was obnoxious. I forgave Road Runner, for instance, for not ever being eaten by Wile E. Coyote because while coyotes are pretty neat and I admired Wile E.'s determination, road runners are awesome. Plus Road Runner wasn't a little twit. He was just crazy prescient. The Force is with Road Runner, dude.

It was therefore rather odd that I had a lengthy Tom and Jerry flashback while running today. You know how the scenery in those cartoons just loops and loops and you see the same lamp flashing past you a dozen times in twenty seconds? I was pretty sure I'd looped that yard with the swing set in it five or six times already. And also I was seeing so much of this particular backyard barbecue that I was starting to feel slighted that I wasn't invited.

I was pretty certain I was running in circles.

Sometimes I do this on purpose. When I am doing a daily short run and don't feel like going out too far, I run around my block (reversing directions every loop to keep from putting too much turning strain on one leg--I don't know if this is actually doing me any good but it seems to make sense.) My block is just short of a mile (.88--I checked) so this is a good distance to run in circles around for a pretty short run. I just run around for between twenty and forty minutes.

Today I was not doing this on purpose. I was also, sadly, not running around my block.

I did my first longerish run today. It would not be accurate to call it a true long run, as I went just shy of five miles, and I only ran for an hour (well. Fifty minutes. I had a five minute warm up walk and a five minute cool down walk). I'm still fifteen weeks out from Disney. When I do long runs on my own rather than with my TNT group, I usually do them by time-on-feet rather than distance. I'm a little behind. According to my schedule I should've run for an hour and fifteen minutes today (or, well...and hour and five of intervals plus five minutes cool down and warm up) but as I signed up kind of late, I didn't think it was a good idea to jump my time that far this week. I'm not that worried about it--it'll even out somewhere.

I almost didn't go out. It was supposed to be hot (for late September) and tomorrow is going to be cool, but I also have plans for tomorrow early afternoon and I knew if I didn't get my run in first thing in the morning (which I could be better about...) I wasn't likely to get it in later. I therefore suited up and went out anyway. I was pretty sure the heat was going to be my biggest problem.

It wasn't. I was in the shade most of the time, it wasn't too humid yet, and there was a good breeze. Yes, I sweated through my hat (gross.) Yes, I looked like I'd worn my tek shirt in the shower. But I wasn't too hot.

Nope. I was lost!

HOW I managed to get lost running where I was--in the residential neighborhoods nearby--is a testament to my legendarily poor sense of direction. Usually when I am going to run in that neighborhood, I just pick a direction, run for half the time I need to run for, then turn around and run back exactly the way I came. This won't work for longer runs, because the residential is actually not that big (it's super-densely filled--no green spaces here except lawns, lawns, lawns--but not big.) So to get the sort of distance I knew I needed, I sort of had to run around in squiggles.

While doing those squiggles, I got disoriented.

I can get lost in a paper bag. If you tell me "It's very simple. Just go straight out my front door to the intersection of sixth and Main, and then turn left onto Main and then walk down Main for two blocks" I will STILL get lost and somehow manage to make two rights (that makes a left...right?) and end up in another town entirely, if not in another state. I am usually pretty calm about getting lost. It happens so often that the novelty has sort of worn off.

I was not calm about the idea of getting lost on this run. I was thirsty (I had not brought my water belt with me, mostly because I can't recall where it is at the moment--I've moved since I last used it.) Nature was calling. I wanted to be at my doorstep when my time was up, not walking around swearing and having to ask strangers "Can you tell me how to get to Shop Rite from here?" (I live right next to ours.) God only knows what they would've thought about the sweaty, sorta pudgy woman dressed like a total dork (my running outfits do not define chic, I fear) asking where Shop Rite is.

My husband, who almost NEVER gets lost, has absolutely no fear about asking for directions. I, who get lost all the time, will usually wander around in circles for a while before I even think of it. This has less to do with pride and more to do with the fact that I don't follow "how to get there" directions very well. Often they leave me more confused than ever. I could tell you epic stories about me getting lost. Suffice it to say that when we lived on base and I was little, I walked to school, and for the first few weeks we lived at this one particular base I got lost walking what should have been nearly a straight line to school and had to be brought home by the military police. And that while those instances became rarer as we lived there, I never entirely STOPPED using the SPs as a taxi service.

Well, I thought, my Garmin can trace my route. I'll just tell the Garmin I want to run home! I didn't want to run all the way I'd come, of course (although maybe running the squiggles in the other direction would've un-disoriented me?) but the Garmin can remember set points and tell you what direction they're in. On my next walk interval, I therefore pulled up its map function and confidently went to the "set points" function.

It was then that I realized that I had forgotten to mark my front step as a set point.

A few moments after this unhappy realization, I was plodding down a street whose name looked familiar but I swear I didn't recognize any of the houses on, I saw a slow-schools sign. That's appropriate, I mused. Go slow. I feel like I'm running so slow I'm actually moving backwards.

Then I smiled.

There's only ONE school in that area, and I run past it all the time. So, it stood to reason, if I just RAN AROUND THE SCHOOL I'd eventually figure out which way to RUN HOME towards.

This was a brilliant and foolproof plan! I plodded in the direction of the "school" signs. Hurray! Saved by an elementary school!

Or, I thought on lap two around the school, perhaps not. Because while I definitely recognized the school, I was SO turned around and I'd run past parts of these neighborhoods so many times today that I still wasn't really sure which way home was. Finally I figured out that if I ran down a certain street past the school either I'd hit a dead end I knew was a bit past, or I'd hit the road that would take me back to the street I actually live on.

I almost wish I'd hit the dead end, because then I would've known for sure that I was on the right way. I didn't, so I was starting to panic until I saw the familiar town park looming before me and knew, finally, after twenty minutes, exactly where I was.

And I was right in front of my apartment the very moment my Garmin beeped the end of my cool down!

Long run one down! Only eleventy-billion more miles to go before Disney!