Running rants and musings

Well, the week of running did not go exactly as I planned in some ways but I did meet a couple of goals for the week.

I missed my run Friday when I overslept. It was raining that morning anyway but I could have gotten on the dreadmill at the gym. However, the rain tranced me back to sleep and to a semi-conscious state in which I turned the alarm off and snoozed all the way to 6:30! I can't say I regretted it because I got some goooood zzzzzzzz's!

I had planned to run that night as soon as I got home. I even called the wife and got the ‘go ahead’. But when I got home the two little faces that pleaded to go ahead and eat and on to the mall were just a little too persuasive. Not that I blame missing the run on the two cute little faces. I am not saying that at all. But I had planned to make up for it today.

I had committed to handing out flyers for our church's VBS kickoff this morning so I scheduled my run for this evening. Interestingly enough, my group was assigned my neighborhood so it was neat to walk the streets with a different goal in mind. We probably walked around 2 1/2 miles with flyers in hand. It was HOT and I was glad I was not trying to run in the heat.

I had to do the husbandly duty of mowing the lawn later in the afternoon. My wife has been sweet and surprising me every week by mowing so far this summer. However, she sprained her foot running last weekend so there was no surprise this week!

It’s not that I hate mowing the yard but I just hate taking the time to mow the yard. Our next door neighbor is paralyzed from the waist down but stays active more than most people his age. He actually mowed our yard one day to be nice. (He said he was enjoying the day so much he just kept on going.) My dad took the occasion to take a ribbing at me saying, “It’s sad that you have to get a paralyzed man to mow your own yard.” It crossed my mind that I better get out there today before my wife did, otherwise, I could hear another major shot coming.

There was some excitement when I saw and killed what I think was a rat snake. It was about 18 inches long and looked menacing enough. I hated to kill it because I know it does good things for my yard but I don’t know my snakes that well and you can’t be too careful with young children.

SO it wasn’t until about 7 that I got to run. I had in mind that I was going to stick to plan and run a slower pace. I started off slow and I have to say, “relaxed” too! I had run about 3 miles and was feeling great when I ran into some friends from church that just had a bad experience with a dog.

Our neighborhood has a lot of runners but there is one drawback – there are a few idiots who think nothing of allowing their dogs to roam loose. Now don’t get me wrong, I love dogs. But dogs are not people and should be supervised properly. There is one particular dog in the neighborhood, a blue-tick healer (I think that is what it is called), who stays in a pin normally but barks with a vengeance. She and her husband encountered the dog outside of its fence and it tried to bite her. The owner just made excuses for the dog saying he had just let its out of its pin for a minute.

I have talked once before on this blog about my slight fear of dogs and lost a little motivation about making the loop again by this dog’s house. After talking to them for 15 minutes I was also cooled down so it didn’t take much to talk myself into just taking the ½ mile back to the house to finish.

I do plan to run a little tomorrow but will be well below 20 miles for the week. On a positive note, I did keep to a 9:30 pace for the run and have not had any sweets since the “commitment”. I will probably run just enough tomorrow to get over the 100-mile mark for my new shoes. I will also type up a plan tomorrow for the next few weeks leading up to the race on September 3rd. I hope everyone else had a great week of running and avoided any snakes or mean dogs!