It's like night. Already.

I'm always tired after my lunch break. Way more tired than I am when I show up to work in the morning. On running days, while driving back from my apartment after lunch, I always think, 'HOW will I run today? How will I be able to do it when I'm SO TIRED?'

And then next thing I know, an hour has gone by and I'm no long tired.

Except today I didn't wake up as much as I had hoped. I was up late last night and my right leg is giving me some problems and all in all, it seemed like I might be looking at a bad run. But WAS IT?!

No! I took it slower than I usually do for a short run and I did just fine. Even my leg was alright, though I foresee a long night ahead of me bonding with an ice pack. Three miles in 34:27. I was pretty deep into The White Album, so I couldn't tell you what my splits were. I'm finding that regardless of how the first mile goes, it's always better than the second mile. And halfway through the second mile, I'm tired of running. But if I can push past the mile marker to start the third, I can make it to the end with no problems.

At any rate, I'm going to have to work on making sure I leave early enough to make it through my run before the sun goes down, on account of the shortening days. Ugh, I am so not looking forward to the time change...

Is it time to run again already?

So remember last Monday when I was all, "Ugh, I suck and I'll never again run on a Monday after a long run on Saturday!" Well, that didn't so much work out. How was I to know that an exciting Beatles lecture would be coming to town this Tuesday (tomorrow!) and that I'd have to go to that (obviously!) instead of run after work? So I had to go today. And go I did. For three jaunty miles I loped along. Alright, I only loped through two of them. I sort of plodded through the last one. 33:33 (11:08/11:13/11:12) which, hey, check out that consistency, but again with me going out too fast on the first mile! I always seem to do that the first short run after a long run. Eventually I'll get the hang of it. Now I have to go so I can shower before Part 2 of Ken Burns' National Parks documentary comes on. Such are my priorities. (These entries seem to be getting shorter, don't they? Strange how difficult it is to make the same monotonous routine seem interesting day in and day out... And still 10 weeks to go until the half! The mind boggles at how Susie and I wrote about Jake for all those months.)

This week in long runs...

Now you tell me what's up with that. Because last week I was DYING and this week I was going along like nobody's business. And it wasn't just me...last week the entire group looked near death half-way through our run and this week we were all, like, whatever. This running is strange business! It must have been more than just the humidity last week...

At any rate, 8.5 miles today! One hour, thirty-seven minutes, and fifty-one seconds. I am in minimal pain considering.

It was a very even run, in that at no point did I feel awful, nor at any point did I feel like I could go forever. It was one foot in front of the other the whole way.

Uhhh...I really have no other details to share. Except that there was a HUGE dead cockroach in my living room at 5 am this morning and I haven't seen a HUGE dead cockroach in my apartment in close to a year. But that has nothing to do with anything.

So I'm going to go start my laundry.

Back in the saddle.

Two days with no running. Two!! I realize I go two days without running every week, but I never go the two days that I went without this week, and especially not when going only one day without after Saturday's long run (if you can follow that sentence). It's wreaking havoc on me! I feel like I haven't run in ages and ages, even though "ages" is really only 48 hours. Or is it 72? It's too hard to do complicated math, like "counting days," after a run...

Not much to report about today's run, either. Except that I was AWESOME. Three miles in 33:55 (11:24/11:16/11:15). So is the slump over?! Er, considering this Saturday's run is going to be 8 miles (!!), I'm not counting my chickens just yet.

And since today marks one month since I started this blog, I will officially record my Month 1 total miles run as 47.5. I would like to think that next month's total will be a bit higher, but maybe not because I have a vacation and a reunion coming up in October and the running might take a hit there for a while. But who knows? We'll see!

Er, no running tonight.

The half-marathon schedule(s) finally came via electronic mail and it seems to me that the rousing speech we got last Saturday about increasing our training must have been geared towards the full marathoners. For I, myself, did not see anything on the schedule(s) that indicated that I was anything except ahead of schedule re my mileage. Ergo, no running tonight.

But I'll be back at it tomorrow. And I did cross-train this evening. I was quite proud of myself for doing so, too, because I forgot earlier and I thought, 'hmmm...maybe I'm too tired?' But I knew I wasn't really. So go me.

This weekend I started a mile-counter on the sidebar so that I when I need a motivational-boost, I can simply look over there and congratulate myself on the many, many miles I've run. But I wasn't sure how accurate the count was. So far, my pedometer has always been well over the distance calculated by Google on our long runs on Saturday. On Monday, in an attempt to figure out if it was calibrated correctly, I wore my pedometer on my two mile run, knowing the distance was exact around the track. What did my pedometer read at the end?

1.88 miles.

Huh. Granted, I was running quicker than usual and thus my stride was a tad longer, but there is a very real possibility that my calculations have been a tenth of a mile off for every two miles I've run on Saturdays.

In which case my tally could be as much as a mile short (!).

WHO KNOWS, my friends?! All I know is that I enjoyed the night off and that right now, I'm going to bed. Until tomorrow...

Here we go.

Running after one only day of rest?? Alas, yes.

So...we got this e-mail ("we" being my half-marathon group) last Friday and apparently we aren't training hard enough. The two days a week I've been running? No! It should be three! The two or three or (that one time) four miles I run after work? No! I should be aiming for five!

I'm not sure such a schedule is physically possible or mentally helpful (um, hello, it's not like I have all this time on my hands and absolutely nothing to do except run...I also have to blog about running!) but wanting to be a good little half-marathoner I thought, 'OK, I'll bite. What is this schedule that I'm supposed to be following and whatnot?'

Our leader-man promised to bring the schedules to our group run on Saturday morning but he forgot. "Just e-mail me!" he said. "I'll send you everything to you in an attachment!"

I e-mailed him as soon as I got home and have not heard anything since.

So I really don't know what the hell I'm supposed to be doing, but I do know that giving myself only one day of rest after a long run will build endurance or whatever so, er, yeah. I ran today. Though only two miles. Baby steps! I'm kind of tired. And I ate leftover Mexican for dinner which isn't exactly an energy booster.

I went out waaaaay too fast and did the first mile in 11:04 and then was just dead for mile two (11:12). For real. I was dragging across the finish line. I almost always am able to finish strong and run the last tenth of a mile pretty fast. Not today. It just wasn't all that great, any way you look it. But anytime you train, there are periods where you peak and trough.

What I learned today was a) I'm totally troughing, and b) next time I'll lay off the Mexican. Blech.

Probably the Closest I Have Come to Death

Humidity 93%. What even IS THAT? I'll tell you what: it's death by percentage points. And that's the humidity when I got home...it had actually dropped throughout my run because when each of us dragged ourselves weakly to the finish, we were greeted with the information, "It was 100% humidity when we started out this morning!"

It was horrible.

7.5 miles in 1:25:58. The last 20 minutes were the longest of my life. I had to stare at the ground because if I looked up, I would vomit.

It was a Shelby Farms day. We parked under the Walnut Grove bridge and then ran the dirt path up to Farm Road, crossed into the park, ran the Chickasaw Trail, ran the trail around Patriot Lake, and then took the dirt path back to the bridge. The marathoners had to do that twice. As evidence of the struggles we were all having this morning, most of the marathoners passed me on the dirt road at the very end of my run. On a less saturated day, I wouldn't have even seen those people because they would have been halfway around the Chickasaw Trail again before I left Patriot Lake.

It has rained and rained and rained and rained and rained the past week and a half. And it's supposed to rain again today. And tomorrow, too. And the Chickasaw Trail will kill you on a good day when it's the only thing you're running. Today was the hardest goddamned run I have done in a long, long time.

There were two girls in front of me who are training for the marathon and they're new to running so they're on a schedule of running 5 minutes, walking 1, running 5, and so on. They were right ahead of me and I'd *almost* catch up while they walked...and then they'd run ahead...and then I'd *almost* catch up again...over...and over...and over...for an hour and twenty-six freaking minutes. And I usually run with another girl who's about at my pace but today she had to stop to walk (God do I not blame her) and so I was alone. Dripping wet. Unable to breathe. Caught in the mental torture of watching the people in front of me...

So, yeah. Running is awesome and everyone should do it.

I contemplated running last night...

...but it was raining. I believe it has rained at least once every day for the past week now. Or if I'm just making that up, then it's rained every day except one (that one being today...so far). We haven't seen the sun in days and days and days...

So no running yesterday. But yes cross-training. And Daily Show-watching. And, er, what else did I do last night? Obviously it was of little importance.

Today it was AGAIN a dripping 80% humidity, the threat of rain imminent, but onward I went.

I ate lunch with my mom today and I had fish and chips and a high-caloric beverage, the combination of which weighed down my run. But onward I went.

And by God I was in a fix trying to come up with a proper playlist for today's outing but ONWARD I WENT.

The only real question today was...two miles or three? Answer: two. In 21:45 (I was deep in thought at the one mile mark so I have no idea how that breaks down). I stayed at two in part because my knees (both) are starting to feel the burden of the increasing pressure I've put on them lately and in part because of the brick of fish from lunch resting in my gut.

Oh, yes, it'll be two bags of ice tonight, one on each leg. But maybe some crunches, too. I don't know. I don't want to get too wild, doing them two nights in a row...but for some reason I'm feeling reckless this evening...

UPDATE: It's raining. And I've crunched. So there you go.

What the frick, Daily Show?

Look, I have a system, alright? A schedule. I come home. I eat. I run. I get back in time to watch the previous night's Daily Show on Comedy Central at 7:00 pm. It's, like, this thing. That I do. Called a routine.

But oh. Oh oh. After a painful waiting period of three (3!) weeks whilst Jon Stewart and Co. took a merry late-summer break, they are back this week along with the announcement that from now on, the reruns will be shown at 6:00 pm.

Six pee-em! What am I supposed to do with SIX PM?

The only plausible benefit to this time shift is that it no longer pits The Daily Show against Countdown with Keith Olbermann, so no longer would I have to channel-surf during commercial breaks. Except OH WAIT, Comcast is evil and took MSNBC away from me and all other basic cable subscribers in the Memphis metropolitan area. Ergo, as of today, I have entered an era in which I am forced to watch all of my shows online. I mean, why even have a television?

(For NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, of course. And, sometimes, 18 Kids and Counting. Oh, and NOVA. And obvs I'll watch The Daily Show at 6:00 on the nights when I don't run...so really, there are many reasons to have a television.)

So there's that.

Also, I had all of these things that were going on this evening and I was being pulled in many directions, but then none of those things happened. And with this sudden freeing of my after-work hours, I could either stay home and watch The Daily Show or run. The part of me that feels an obligation to post on this blog chose to run. Go me.

I did 3 miles in 34:22. I tried to use the "lap" feature on my watch because I've never really understood what it is or why it's there but I thought maybe it would keep track of my lap times for me so I wouldn't have to remember each one as I crossed the mile marker. Whether or not this is the actual use of the lap feature, I still don't know. Despite my earnest button-punching this evening, I remain ignorant of how to use it, so I have no idea what my splits were.

The humidity was nice and oppressive tonight (80% according to Google). NOT an easy run. From about 1.25 miles on, there was nothing fun about it.

And...also of note...in the realm of personal achievement, I just added up my mileage and I've run just under 33 miles since I started this blog. That's...not as many as it feels like.

I was so tired yesterday...

...that I fell over.

I was doing alright until around noon or so, and then I started doing laundry, and by the time I was making up my bed, I was exhausted and hot and wanted to switch out of jeans and into some shorts. So I started pulling my jeans off and...BAM. I fell on the floor. This is not usual behavior for me! (Although I'm totally fine, aside from a bruised knee.)

So I didn't cross-train yesterday. But I did today! Kudos to me. I also solved the Beatles conundrum by ordering the box set from Amazon and resigning myself to a long wait. But hey, since I don't know when it'll come, it'll be a fun surprise. PROBLEM SOLVED.