i actually had one more post i wanted to backdate but i really needed to post about tonight’s run so i have to jump current.  tonight was… fantastic!  the weather was gorgeous.  the sun was shining but the fall breeze buffered it and it was already starting to set when i was on my way back.  i don’t know why but i just felt good.  from start to finish.  even though i was having terrible wardrobe malfunctions.  which makes no sense because i’ve never had problems with this skort (i’m used to it with the other two because they are still too small for me) but tonight the shorts kept riding up constantly.  it was annoying and slowed me down but it didn’t bring my mood down.  i kept a good, even pace all the way over and was at 18:49 when i turned around, a little less than a minute shorter than my “first split” last week.  i walked for about a minute going back up (mostly because i was having such fits with my skort) but otherwise “ran” the whole thing.  and i felt great.  no pain, no discomfort.  i was breathing heavy but not uncomfortably so and my throat got a bit dry so i was happy to see the water table on my way back (oh yeh, i walked another 30-40 seconds there).  i even saw dolphins in the bay.  i’ve never seen anything out there but birds and boats.  i had the biggest, goofiest grin on my face watching those dolphins come toward the bridge and disappear under me.  i did some uphill sprints and i was feeling so good on my way back that i was able to pick up my pace the rest of the way after the water stop.  i even sprinted the last little piece after crossing the red light.  my time tonight was 38:34.  i finally broke forty, on my own, and i did so by a minute and a half!!!  that averages out to almost a twelve-flat pace.  over the bridge!  i was showing my watch off to everyone.  i really didn’t even feel like i had pushed myself.  most importantly, i enjoyed myself.  truly.  i had a fun run tonight!  i never thought i’d feel that way about an activity that i spent my whole life despising.

good grief, arcanai!  are you ever going to get back into a routine?  you know all this laziness isn’t helping matters!

and the sloth continues. what can i say? it’s been a tremendously low week. every time i thought about being active, i sank into despair and could hardly seem to breathe. there are just days like. and mother nature apparently sympathized since we’ve had more rain/storms this week than we have all year. the weather was a convenient excuse.

so much for being more active with my cousin here and her training.  i’m such a sloth.

pre-race photo op

how far past my bedtime is it again?

the real start

OUR start

my finish

my cousin's finish

i would do it again.  although i would probably just bandit it because it really was not worth paying $15 when i didn’t even get a shirt.  they could have at least offered to mail one to me.  i really wanted the stupid shirt.  the nice thing about running at midnight is that it’s not quite as florida outside.  although i was still sweating like crazy by the time we finished.  so… next year then?

with the bossman in town, there was too little activity and too much eating out.  i did accomplish the mile of laps which made me very proud so it wasn’t a completely forsaken week.  with my cousin visiting next week and her being in training, my activity should greatly increase. 

i did it… i swam a full mile today!!!  that’s thirty laps in the pool in just fifty-two minutes.  i have been so stinking proud of myself all afternoon!  and, strangely, a little bit sore.  go me!!!

i was feeling really good in my swim today.  i was going strong, without rest breaks, and feeling fine.  conditions were perfect… no sun… no other swimmers… i was totally going to do a mile.  i could feel it.  when i was on my 37th length, one of our maintenance guys burst my bubble by telling me that lightning was sighted so the pool was closing.  i went ahead and swam my 38th length back to the side where my towel and robe were and got out, two short of my self-imposed minimum and thirty-two short of my goal.  such is life maybe tomorrow.

it’s finally here… the time of year that we can start reclaiming our beach and pool.  and so i have.  yesterday was the first time in months that i swam laps in the pool.  i did either 24 or 28 lengths.  i was aiming for 28 but i think i only got 24.  i lost count when ms. B. stopped me to talk for several minutes.  such is life.  it was my first day back at it so i was fine with it being a short one.  when i was done with my workout, i got out and headed toward my towel and ran straight into cargo.  we talked for a few minutes before i realized that it was him and his new girlfriend sitting on the steps at the other end of the pool.  they had been sitting there for probably half my laps with me swimming right up next to them and i never noticed it was them.  and they never realized it was me.  so we talked for a few minutes while i dried off and then i went over to say hi to K before heading back up to work.  we made plans to get together last night but were never able to get in touch with them.  we did go out with scooter and sunny and a couple of their friends, though, so that was fine.

today i did 40 lengths of the pool, which is the equivalent of 2/3 mile.  there was a little girl, probably four years old, who was very intrigued by my swimming.  she asked questions such as “why are you swimming so many times?” every time i got to her end of the pool.  she even followed me back across the pool once (she had water-wings on).  i told her what an awesome job she had done swimming all that way and she exclaimed that her legs were SO tired.  she ended up getting out and walking back to the other end again.  my next lap by her, she asked why my legs weren’t tired.  i told her that they were very tired.  she asked why i kept swimming if i was tired.  i told her that i was swimming for exercise and it was good to get tired when exercising.  i don’t think she got it but she sure was cute.  i wanted to stick her in the pocket of my robe and bring her home!  on my last lap, i made sure to let her know that i was done swimming and that i had enjoyed talking with her.  sure she slowed me down but she was such a cutie, i didn’t mind. 

really, there’s not a whole lot to say about swimming so i won’t be going on about it all the time, but i do intend to make it a regular part of my workout routines again.  and i’m genuinely looking forward to it, even if it does kick my butt.

to reduce the clutter of exercise posts, i’ve decided to just start doing a weekly summation of all of my activities.  maybe seeing it all laid out in one grid will help motivate me to fill in more spaces… it’ll be like playing fitness BINGO!  😉  i’m sure there will still be inane posts with details of specific activities.  what can i say, i’m boring and have nothing better to talk about here.  i guess that’s why i only have two readers. 

last night, we went to mello’s store to get hubby a new pair of running shoes.  while there, we made tentative plans to meet up with them at our plaza later on.  we stopped to do a bit of grocery shopping on our way home and that was where i had a complete stranger make me feel like absolute crap.  hubby and i went up separate aisles.  i was getting some whole wheat pasta when a man approached me.  i’m not a fan of getting approached by strangers to begin with but i try to be genial and unafraid.  this man handed me a card and told me that he knew a program that would help me lose my extra weight.  cue the polite smile while struggling to fight back tears.  why?  why would you say such a thing to someone you don’t know?  i know that i’m not as svelte as i once was but i didn’t realize i had gotten so monstrously huge that a stranger would want to help me lose weight.  luckily, hubby came up the aisle a moment later and he left.  unfortunately, the damage was done and i felt downright lousy for the next couple hours.  good thing we had plans with friends and the fun conversation was enough to pull me out of the funk.  next stranger that tries to talk to me will get an immediate fu. 

this morning we got up early to go meet a guy about some surfboards for sale.  hubby had talked with him last night and made arrangements to meet him at his house at 07:00 to look at the boards.  so…we go up at 06:00… on a saturday.  and we drove a couple towns up to meet this guy.  we called when we were a couple miles from his house to let him know we were just about there and he informed hubby he wasn’t home.  apparently he had emailed hubby but he didn’t bother to check his email at 06:00.  great.  up at the crack of dawn on a saturday for no reason.  luckily, the guy told us to go on into his yard and where to find the boards so we could at least look at them.  we looked them over, called mello for a phone consultation, and called him back.  there were a couple minor (i guess, we really don’t know anything about surfboards) dings that the guy volunteered to patch up.  he’ll fix them and then bring them to us sometime this week.  the good thing about that is that we should be able to arrange to have scooter or mello around to look them over before we make the purchase. 

when we got back home, i made a quick breakfast and then napped on and off the rest of the morning and afternoon.  around 18:00 i decided it was time to get off the couch.  i dragged hubby away from work and we walked down to the park at our plaza to run some laps.  we took the gps with us so that we could finally measure of a mile lap.  it took us three laps to get it right but i think we ended up with the right combination of turns for a 1.03 mile lap.  close enough for government work.  so after our 3.06 miles of running, we walked through the plaza a bit, grabbed some dinner at panera, and then walked back home.  with the roughly four miles of walking there, around, and home, it ended up being seven miles of activity.  not too shabby for a saturday.

the bridge run tonight was really great.  surprising really, since i was feeling so *blech*on the way out there.  i ran further up the bridge than i have been before walking the rest of the up.  i then ran hard down where i encountered a sidewalk closed sign with tape all around it.  so i veered off and took a longer path down toward the college before turning around and running back to the bridge where i walked up again.  i met hubby at the top and he turned and went back with me the rest of the way.  i ran hard down, walked while i grabbed and drank my water cup, and jogged back to the parking lot.  i really felt great about it.  and i felt like i had been faster.  even though i added a little (very little) distance on the other side of the bridge, i was almost back up to the top of the bridge before meeting up with any of the two-lappers.  it also seemed like the camaraderie was very high tonight.  not only did i get smiles and words of encouragement, but it seemed to be the night of the high-fives.  six or seven guys wanted their hands slapped as we passed.  which was nice… a bit odd and i badly wanted some hand sanitizer from exchanging sweat with so many guys… but it was a nice, uplifting gesture. 

sadly, my “runner’s high” was to be short lived.  i got home, turned on the tv, and discovered that showtime has been taken away from me.  i am so frickin bummed about this.  they play the funkiest movies but i absolutely love their shows.  i’ve been counting down the days to dexter‘s new season because i’m a total dexter addict.  and this season of weeds hasn’t even ended yet.  and i was just getting caught up on californication.  i really, really hope that it comes back in the next few days but i’m doubtful.  seriously, folks, i cannot even tell you how sad i am over this.

tonight was the bridge run – without my hubby.  and it was a melancholy day for me thanks to the very sad dream that i kept slipping back into all night long last night.  and when i got to the parking lot, it seemed that nobody wanted to talk to me.  all this to say, i was feeling pretty lowly when i started my run.  heck, when i first started, i wasn’t even going to run.  i walked the first eighth of a mile or so.  but then panda took a couple minutes out of her run to talk to me and tell me what was going on with her.  and that made me feel much better.  so when she took off, i told myself to jog the rest of the way to the bridge.  i walked up, RAN down, walked up, jogged down, stopped for water, walked while i drank my water, and then jogged the rest of the way back.  several folks offered words of encouragement along the way.  they just don’t know how much that means to me and how helpful it is.  by the time i made it back to the parking lot, i was feeling much better.  *don’t tell hubby that exercise improved my mood, i’ll never hear the end of it!*  i stood around talking with everyone for an hour and a half or so and had a great time.  i really kinda wish we did at least one more group run like that each week.