Weekend Runs

The wind was blowing hard on Friday, so I opted to not go for a run after work. By about 10 pm, the wind had completely stopped, and I was really tempted to grab my head lamp and go out to the OC&E Trail for a quick run, but better sense prevailed (actually my wife told me that I was an idiot and should run with her Saturday morning) so I didn't go.

Saturday's run was okay, but it's pretty obvious that I'm not anywhere near being in decent shape. Janet was supposed to go for a 4 mile run, so I decided that I'd give it a shot also. I was hoping that she'd go in a different direction than I planned, but to my disappointment she opted to go the same direction. It's not that I don't enjoy running with her, but I was worried that either my pace wouldn't be fast enough for her and I'd kill myself trying to keep up and I'd keel over dead half way through, or I'd go too fast for her. I have a tough time running with other people because most of them are in better shape than I am and I wind up killing myself to try to stay up, and it makes the run less than pleasant. At any rate, we ran together for about 100 yards, and then I ran at my pace and Janet ran at her pace. I wound up walking another 1/4 of a mile past the 2 mile turn around point, so my dear wife finished well ahead of me.

The run was actually kind of fun. For a few minutes at about the 1 mile point I felt like I could run. The wind wasn't too bad (5-10 mph headwind going out), it wasn't very cold (38), and there were lots of critters to look at (cows, a couple of horses, and tons of birds). The bad thing is that I've lost over 30 pounds since February 1st, and don't have as much extra padding to keep me warm...even though I could easily stand to lose another 15 or so pounds. My hands absolutely froze. I was wearing a pair of cotton gloves, and within the first mile my fingers were icicles. I ran with my hands inside the pocket of my sweatshirt for a little while, but the damage was already done so I just toughed it out. I did manage to finish the run, so ran a full 4 miles!!! Success!

Yesterday after church I decided that I'd go for another run and asked Janet if she'd like to go along, but she's much smarter than I and stayed home. I went 3 miles...1 1/2 into a 10+ mph wind on the way out, and then a pleasant 10+ mph tailwind on the way back. No one was on the trail (probably because of the wind and 40 degree temps), so I didn't have to worry about looking like a runner. I got to just run.

I'm not sure whether or not I'll go again tonight. Janet will probably do her run early in the afternoon, and because it's Doug's birthday (home from BSU for Spring Break) I'm guessing we'll have dinner fairly early. We'll see how I feel when I'm done working today.