Late Friday night mother nature visited our area and left an unforgettable calling card...winds gusting to 95mph, tons of lightning and ultimately no power. When I woke up to head out for my run on Saturday morning I thought little of the fact that the power was not yet back on, afterall electricity on the Broadneck Peninsula can be very tempermental. I figured it would just be a few more hours and then back to normal. Boy was I wrong and that is why this entry will cover my runs for both Saturday and Sunday (a non-fantastic weekend of running).
As I was saying, Saturday morning the lights were still out but the sun was rising steadily and it was full light out at 6:00am. I had every intention of putting in some extra miles since I had nothing pressing on the schedule for the day. Well, I ignored my best running buddy's wise advice...particularly when running first thing in the morning...never head out on a run without reliable access to a restroom or port-o-john within a mile-ish of where you are. Minus those things, you should have an easy place to jump off the path for a break. Neither of those are along my typical 5-8 mile running route near home. It makes for a long, slow run. Lesson learned. That less than pleasant experience aside, I'm sure I did amuse several cars that passed as I did my "OMG that was so gross, disgusting and I hate snakes more than a root canal with no novocaine" dance as I trotted passed a recently beheaded snake on the side of the road. Man I hate those things dead or alive. The run, however bad, also gave me the opportunity to assess the storm damage in the local area. And no, the lights did not come back on at any time during Saturday. Lights aren't bad to lose once in a while, but air conditioning is during 100 degree days. It was steaming in the house as we cleaned like fiends before our upcoming trip.
Sunday was a bit of a different experience. After more than three weeks I finally got my weekend running partner back. We met up at 6:00am at the B&A trail to head out for about an hour. Brie is still having some IT band issues (only aggravated by our showing at North Face at the beginning of June) so the goal was to get in some miles without injury. We went for a jog 5 minutes, walk 1 pace to keep from over stressing Brie's leg (she's got a triathlon coming up and we want her in tip top shape!) It was a nice steady jog that was VERY conducive to catching up on personal gossip and all the important happenings. We got turned around a little earlier than planned, though, when a tree blocked the whole path. The tree we would have climbed around if there hadn't also been wires tangled up in the tree. Why tempt fate? So we turned it around, jogged back to the cars and headed into town for coffee at City Dock. I've missed my mornings with Brie.
The weekend continued with super hot temps throughout Sunday, but thankfully our power came back on late Sunday morning. I love air conditioning almost as much as I love running. All other things aside, I did hit 550 miles by the end of the weekend (not quite the end of the month...missed it by one day but still). Now let's bring these temps back to normal (or at least remotely tolerable) so that I can get in another 15-20 miles before jumping on an airplane on Friday afternoon for a great two week journey. Happy trails!!!
Stats -
Miles: 11.95
Time: 1:58:12 (the average was around 9:50ish, but don't know for certain)
Location: Broadneck Peninsula (Saturday) & B&A Trail (Sunday)
Feeling: I've definitely had better, but all the running related muscles were working alright
Today was not a record breaking day, or even noteworthy in the grand scheme of the past year. It was merely a short run to stretch the legs as the diva slept in the car with my husband after a great afternoon of playing at the indoor playground in the mall. (whew...that was quite a sentence) It was a couple miles to cement my October achievement and to test my shin.
