Adventures of Memorial Day Weekend

I followed through on my threat to run Friday morning. Ted decided that, since I was working from home on Friday and we were driving out to Pittsburgh that night, he would like some extra sleep in the morning. So my early morning run had to be postponed until 7:00. Not my ideal time, but I bent a little. The sun was up, and it was already getting warm. About mile 2, I didn't pick my foot up the whole way and ended up doing a spread eagle in front of the elementary school. In classic Maggie style, the spread eagle wasn't embarrassing enough so without thinking I quickly move into a stretch pose, as if to make it look like "I meant to do that, really."

Two skinned knees, two scraped thighs, two torn-up palms, and one bruised ego later, I was on with the run. I considered turning around, but figured I wasn't cutting much time or distance off my 5-mile loop by turning around at mile 2, so I kept going (after ensuring I didn't have blood running down my legs at all).

About mile 3.5, I cross in front of another elementary school, where I normally would turn and head down a busier street towards home. It was the height of the school-time commute, so the crossing guard was out in operation. "You going straight?" he asked as I approached the intersection, the one I would normally turn on and head home. However, I was feeling saucy and felt bad refusing his services, so I nodded and he headed out into the intersection to stop traffic and let me cross. I thanked him, wished him a pleasant holiday, chuckled that there wasn't a car in sight, and headed straight instead of turning. This lead me onto back streets I had never been on, and added a nice little scenery change for the rest of the run home.

My time for that run wasn't great--but it was a fun run and a true treat.

The rest of the weekend consisted of lots of driving, my 10-year class reunion, and a bike ride and picnic with friends at Valley Forge yesterday morning. I hadn't been on a bike in probably a year or so...Ted loves to bike, I am not a big fan. I think it frustrates me because I think that because I run, I will have an easy time biking up hills, and I don't always. But this was nice. We had a good ride, and it felt good to do some cross training for once.

Hopefully this week will be a productive week as far as evening runs go. Ted admitted yesterday he was tired of being a running slacker, and that we need to start picking it up again. He wants to get back to the point of doing 20 miles a week comfortably, and stick with that through the summer up to the time we have to start training for Philly. I like that, and promised to encourage us both to stick with it. We need to. I need to.

After all, what's the point of running all winter, only to lose the body come bikini season?