Well, I was going to bitch about Texas weather this morning. You know, about how it is mid-December and freaking 70 degrees for my run this morning. And rainy. And how the other day a cold front "blew through" where it rained like hell all day, got cold for like 5 minutes, then turned around, tucked its tail and ran, because the big scary Gulf of Mexico told it to. And you know, the Jingle Bell run that I had wanted to do last Sunday, how it seems to make good sense to plan a December fun run for early afternoon when the sun will have broken the chill and created almost perfect running weather. Unless you're in Texas, in which case the sun will have made it 80 degrees and humid as hell by 2pm. In December!!! On some days. If they had had the run a week earlier, it would have been 50-60 and beautiful. Because that's how we roll.
But I'm no longer going to talk about that. My run this morning trumps even weather angst. Because oh my goodness did I ever have a crappy run this morning. It started off slow. I was feeling, well, slow and lethargic and dead-legged. I tried to distract myself by purposefully noticing the holiday decorations that have gone up around the neighborhood - this worked for one of three loops. On loop two, I just kept telling myself that you should never judge the crappiness of a run until you are more than 2 miles in, so I dogged it out. As I got ready to start loop three, I noticed that when I was done running, I may need to go to the bathroom. The issue didn't seem pressing, so I continued on. (You can see where this is going now, can't you??) I noticed that I was really using poor form: abdomen was loose, arms were floppy and creeping up, head was jiggling around, etc. So I focused on running this last loop with better form. Until my stomach happened. I was maybe half a mile from home when I hit t-minus-one-minute-ago with no warning at all. My eyes popped open, and I started running faster. Then it got worse. (Worse!!) Around a quarter of a mile away from home, I started to panic, taking long loping strides. I realized that my turnover had gone down, so I reminded myself to pick that us. I was freaking flying up this giant hill to home. And I wasn't sure I was going to make it. I turned down my street, only one tenth of a mile now, and started fumbling my key out. I saw Preston's car leaving the driveway, and hoped he wouldn't mind when I flew right past him - I had no time. Powered up BM's driveway, unlocked the door with a shaking hand, and made it. Made it. Sat there quivering, panting, dripping sweat all over the place. But I made it. That is the closest I've *ever* come to not making it. And it was really really close.
Bathroom emergencies make me fast. I was running slow enough that I was looking at 3.5 miles in 40 minutes, until the crisis hit about 35 minutes and 3.25 miles into the run. I ended up with 3.75 miles in 40 minutes, and I know I was going faster than 10 minutes per mile as this run was "progressive" paced relative to my level of panic.
Wow. That's all there is to say. I made it.
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