Check out the determination I showed this week, with my 3 running days and all.

Look at me go! THREE running days this week. Possible reasons for my motivation are:

a) The realization that I have a mere six weeks until the half-marathon! Thus, I need to get my act together.
b) The realization that my 5-year college reunion is next fucking week! Thus, I need to get my act together.
c) The realization that I ate so much rich food last weekend! Thus, I need to get my act together.
d) All of the above.

Obviously the answer is d. It may not *seem* as if I've fallen off the wagon, but from the standpoint of essentially having taken all of last week off, I feel like I'm behind. This week's Saturday run will be 8 miles, and considering it'll have been three weeks since I've run that far, I'm a little nervous. I shouldn't be. But I am. Consistent short runs during the week help with my confidence, though...and I still have some pent-up frustration over work that is producing in me a desire burn off energy when I get home.

Today I stopped at 2 miles, primarily because I have (depressingly consistently) injured myself every time I've upped my mileage this year. It wasn't that long ago that I was running 2 miles twice a week. I slowly built up to 3 miles twice a week and now I'm graduating to 3 miles twice a week and 2 miles once a week. My knees don't like change and I have to appease them by introducing them to new situations gradually.

My two miles today were not without adventure. I left early, around 5:45, to make sure I would be done before it got dark. But as I was leaving the parking lot, I was stopped by a guy whose battery was dead. No big deal; I pulled up my car, popped the hood, he got out his cables and...I have a small car. So he didn't get a full charge right away. So we talked. He told me about how his girlfriend is pressuring him into marrying him, I told him about my impending 5-year reunion, etc, whatever, blah. Still no charge. So we talked some more. About what we majored in in college, about running, about the current nationwide unemployment rate of 9.8%. Still no charge.

By this time it was getting dark, so he called a friend of his and the friend agreed to come out with his large SUV-like vehicle (i.e. vehicle with a large battery) and I went off to run.

But it was DARK by then and I don't run in the park after dark because there's a sketch factor. And yet I really wanted to get my two miles in so I thought, 'hell, why not?' and I ran anyway.

And I learned many things! I learned that there are a (very) few people who only come to the park to run after dark! And I learned that the kid who always walks along slowly, staring at the ground with his baseball cap low over his eyes, keeps on walking even after the sun goes down! The park really wasn't scary at all after dark. It was just hard to see where I was going.

I actually started running before the mile marker because I was trying to maximize on the little amount of light that was left...so I'd say I ran about 2.2 miles this evening. I did it in 23:32 and it was fantastic. There's this thing about running in the dark (which I experience in early morning runs far, FAR more often than evening runs) where your sense of depth perception is off and running, for whatever inexplicable reason, feels easier because of it.

When I was done, the guy's car was up and running again but he'd hung around to make sure that I hadn't been murdered or something on my run (this is Memphis we're talking about) and also that I was able to start my car after trying for a good 25 minutes to give him a charge.

So yes, in many ways it was an unusual run tonight. But not in a bad way.

More on Saturday!