Apparently the allergies I thought I was battling was actually a cold. I’m guessing. I know it wasn’t COVID because I took many rapid tests and a regular PCR test just to be sure. I hate that we lives our lives wondering now, ”Is it a allergies, a cold, the flu, or COVID?” They all have the same dang symptoms so it’s a little like playing roulette.
Haha. ”Explain your sneeze”
All I know is that I had both a drippy and stuffed up nose, a slight sore throat (most likely just from drainage) and a major headache for like a week and a half. I was terrified it would go down into my chest because I swear every time I get sick, it turns into bronchitis. I know they say if it’s above the neck, it’s okay to run, but my head was pounding so bad for most of that week I decided not to chance it. So before school, after school and on the weekend, I stayed inside and watched old Castle reruns on Hulu Nathan Fillion really does it for me. He’s got that boyish charm. I forgot how good that show was!
I don’t know if it’s because we’ve had to wear masks for so long, but this is the first time I’ve had a cold/allergies/whatever in 2 years. Maybe the pollen is just that bad this year because of the spastic weather we’ve been having here in AZ. Who knows? What I do know, is that I didn’t get to run for a whole week and it sucked majorly. I missed my me time. I missed being out in the sun and pushing my body.
I finally ran for the first time in over a week on Wednesday after school. It wasn’t my “best” run, no records were set, but to me any run is a good run. The important thing was that I was outside moving my body and satisfying my soul. I know that sounds incredibly trite, but that’s how I feel. I just feel renewed when I run, even if I come back completely exhausted.
Our weather truly has been spastic. It was almost 90 degrees on Wednesday when I ran. It was so warm I actually took my water bottle with me. I hate running with water. I know they make running water bottles specifically to fit on our hands when we run, but I just always feel sloshy and lopsided. I always end up switching back and forth between hands too so I can be comfortable. Because it was so hot, I acquiesced and decided to take my water bottle filled with ice water when I set out. I squeezed water into my mouth a few times because it was so dang hot, but it just ended up tasking like plastic from the water bottle. I didn’t love it and ended up just dumping out it when I got home.
The sun was beating down on me, but it still felt so great to get out there after not being able to run for a week. I didn’t happen upon any sprinklers during this run, but I did find a canopy of trees that provided a brief respite from the glare of the sun for like a full minute as I ran under them.
You can see where the shade ends and the sun begins again
When I got home I was more tired than usual, sweaty and completely out of breath, but happy. Running after school is not my favorite since we get out so late in junior high. I don’t really like running in the evening at all anyway. I’m more of a morning runner. I think it’s one of those ”run before your body knows what’s actually happening” things. Not really. I’m just usually exhausted by the end of the day and running when I’m that tired is just harder.
I’m looking forward to more runs this week as I’m on spring break! Yay!
I ran for the first time this year after school on Tuesday of this week. I’ve been trying to figure out what I’m going to do during the week as far as running. I don’t want to run just one day on the weekend. I don’t say “training” because technically I’m not training for anything and I feel like that puts way too much pressure on me. Right now I’m running for the sheer love of it, and for the endorphins of course.
Tuesday of this week I got home from school at a relatively decent time and was able to change, lace up and get out the door by 5. I figured that would give me plenty of time before dinner and before daylight started to wane. I headed out on the route I’ve been following (which I’m kind of starting to get bored of) and walked with my uncle, cousin’s daughter and my aunt’s dog until the end of the block for my ”warm up”. They were headed off to walk the dog (they go about a mile or so). Moqui is a golden-doodle and is the best boi. He thinks he’s people and sometimes, I swear he is part human. He loves to pose for photos.
At the end of the block I bid my farewells and took off at a slow pace. I don’t really have a training plan in mind, as I said in an earlier post, right now I run until I can’t and then I walk. I did that for about the first mile or so and then my brain told me I needed to mix it up and do something different just to actually start to see where I’m at physically. I’m still not able to run a full mile without stopping, but I’d like to get there sooner rather than later, so I decided to start running for .10 and then walk for .10. It was a lot of me looking at my wrist as I tried to pay attention to my AppleWatch. I was able to use the RunKeeper app on my AppleWatch, but I wasn’t sure I loved it. It’s basic for sure, I just hit start and it recorded my workout. I don’t know if I was off or the satellite was off or what, but RunKeeper had me at a slower pace than any of the other apps I’ve used thus far and I feel like my run went a lot better.
My .10 strategy worked pretty well. I had to keep looking down, but after a half a mile or so I got pretty adept at predicting when the time would hit that tenth and I’d look down just in time to see it roll over. It was pretty easy to do and kept me occupied. I didn’t have a lot of ”think” time while I was doing it because I was concentrating on the milage and that’s okay, some days I don’t need to get lost in my thoughts.
Last time I ran everything was perfect, in particular-my playlist. I felt like every song energized me, motivated me, and kept me moving. This run was different. I actually had to keep telling Siri to “skip song” because I just wasn’t feeling it. As a side note it’s really hard to talk to Siri whilst huffing and puffing. My music just hit different and I couldn’t figure it out. I picked the songs on that playlist because of their beat so it’s not like they were slow songs or anything like that. I think maybe I just got songs that were over-played or maybe I just needed something different to get me going. I needed something faster-paced or….just different. I don’t know how to explain it, but it was getting frustrating. Maybe it’s because it was after a long school day and I was tired to begin with and needed that extra kick? I don’t know. I ended up telling Siri to ”skip song” pretty much throughout the whole run.
I’m still looking around the hood as I run for fun things to amuse me. There are many farm animals roaming around I’ve discovered so I’ll probably snap some pictures of them eventually. Tuesday though, the sun was starting to set, and as it did, it glinted off something metallic in someone’s front yard. I couldn’t tell what it was at first, but as I got closer I was able to see a giant dinosaur just chilling in someone’s front yard. I didn’t want them yelling at me to not take a picture so I took one on the sly during one of my walk breaks. I would have loved to get up closer and see what exactly it was made out of.
Look at that gorgeous sky behind Iggy (I named him). Arizona does have some beautiful sunsets! It almost looked like the sky was on fire! At this point I was just a little past halfway through my run and I knew it would be dark soon. I needed to hurry it up because I didn’t want to run while the sunlight was draining out of the sky. I didn’t have any reflective gear on, plus I was getting really hungry! My lunch at school is at noon and I was afraid to have a snack at the end of the day because I wasn’t sure how my stomach would do.
You can kind of see Iggy in the background as I ran past him. The rest of the run was pretty uneventful. I still fought with Siri over the music and managed to keep up the .10 switch off, which seemed to work okay. I tried it again on the run I did yesterday. I may write another post just to talk about that experience and how I’m feeling today. All in all it was another successful if uneventful run. I’m just happy that I’m getting back out there again.
I even managed to find some sprinklers to run through. Leave it to Arizona to have bright green grass covered in ”fall” leaves and sprinklers going in January….
There is something about knowing my body is aching from pushing myself and giving it my all versus my body aching because it hates me. I’m always happy when I’m achy or sore from a good run or workout. I think it’s because I know that I did that to myself. I made my body show me what it is capable of, and then pushed myself a little farther.
Part of my medical issues is me feeling like I have the flu every few weeks. My body just aches. My fingers, my legs, my arms…sometimes it’s subtle and other times I feel like I got run over by a car. We still haven’t figured what that’s all about. We have some ideas, and I’m waiting for confirmation; but it’s still one of the great mysteries in my life right now. Rediscovering running is helping me cope with that right now.
Running has become my salvation. I have felt myself get a little dark and twisty here and there over the last year or so. There have been some moments where I can honestly say that I scared myself. Between school, home, job 2, my medical issues and just life in general, I feel a little out of control and all over the place from time to time.
I just know that when I am starting to feel anxious, angry or particularly out of sorts, I can go for a run. This allows me to either work out a solution to whatever problem I’m facing, or it honestly just helps me to chill out so I can look at it objectively. I remove myself from whatever situation either physically or mentally by putting on my magic shoes and taking off down the street. 45 minutes to an hour later I come back tired and spent, but happier.
I haven’t run in over 3 years so I’m not running the whole time, believe me. I’ve been walking to the end of my block to warm up, I stop and stretch and then I take off running. I run until I feel like I need a break, and then I walk until I catch my breath. Lather, rinse and repeat!
I can feel myself getting slightly obsessed again, and I’m making an honest effort to reign it in. I really have only gone on 3 runs since the new year, but I know how it makes me feel and I want to go every day. First, my schedule won’t allow for that (still trying to figure out when if the after school thing will work), and second, I don’t want to do to much too fast and end up benching myself due to injury. I’ve been there and done that and it just leads to frustration. I need my outlet!
I completed my second run of the new year this last weekend. I had a rare Saturday off. I had requested it because my friend group from my previous school has been trying to make it a monthly date to get together and stay in touch. I haven’t been able to go the last few times either because I’ve been sick, or because of my work schedule. I woke up to a beautiful morning and we weren’t meeting until around 1 so I slipped on my Brooks and headed out. It was slightly overcast, but not overly so. There was a slight breeze in the air too. I started out in a long-sleeve shirt because it was around 50 degrees (chilly for AZ) but after about a block and a half I was sweating so I pulled it off and tied it around my waist. I know you’re supposed to keep your core warm when you run, but I can’t stand wet clothes sticking to my arms (I was wearing a regular cotton long-sleeve shirt that I adore from a local retailer-you can check them out here).
It really was a beautiful day. It was a great run too. I put my running playlist on shuffle and either I was really feeling all of the songs, or all the good ones played because I didn’t have to skip any songs and they all had really great beats. I wasn’t going to go very far, but I was in the groove and ended up going about 3 miles. I’m not 100% sure what the exact milage was because the RunKeeper app that was suggested to me decided to stop working or was not connecting to the satellite or whatever and I started the activity app on my AppleWatch a little late, so it didn’t track all of my mileage. Aside from that glitch it was one of those days where I wish I could have just kept going.
I am primarily running the same route right now in kind of a weird circle around my hood until I feel like I’m ready to up my mileage (which will not be anytime soon). I try to look for something new every run, just to keep things interesting. Currently I’m living with family in an older neighborhood that has acre lots. The agreement is that the land can’t be parceled so people have extra large front and backyards which is pretty cool. A lot of the neighbors have farm animals. When I was about halfway through my run I happened upon an ostrich. He was just chilling in a gated area sandwiched in-between two houses. He came up to the fence like it wanted some attention so I got a little closer, but I was still nervous. I’ve never seen an ostrich up close before and I didn’t know if this one was aggressive or not so I just kind of kept walking. He kept up with me until the end of the fence. He was giving me the side-eye the whole time. I felt like he was judging me, but I’m sure it was just my imagination. I’ve secretly named him Rudy because he seemed like he had an attitude.
Meeting Rudy was fun, but the best part of the day was hanging out with my friends. I worked with all of them at my previous school. Three of us moved on to other schools, three had retired and one brave soul is still soldiering on in first grade. We sat outside at a cute little local wine bar and ordered lunch and some drinks. My fabulous friend Peg arranged the whole thing and had reserved a big table for us. It was almost center of the outdoor patio area and it was great people watching. She had arrived just before I did, so we got to hang out and chat for a little while before the others started trickling in. It was nice just to catch up one on one. I miss the team we had once upon a time. Our school was so fun because of the people that worked there.
We ended up sitting there and chatting for several hours (and like 7 glasses of iced tea for me). There were a few of our group that couldn’t make it, but there were enough of us that we needed to move around the table so we could chat with those sitting at the other end. The weather really couldn’t have been any more perfect-as was the company!
After we broke it up a few of us moseyed across the parking lot to a local running store that I honestly forgot was there because it’s on the other side of town from me. I had just purchased new shoes before the first of the year, but I always love running stores so I went along to ”window shop”.
I swear we went into that store like a whirling dervish. There were 5 of us that walked into that store. There were a few other customers in there but I swear it’s like we scared them off because I looked up from a rack of running shirts like 10 minutes later and they were all gone. There were boxes of shoes everywhere! We all ended up trying on shoes. I found another pair I really liked (of course) and justified my purchase by telling myself that my shoes would last longer because I could swap them out with my other ones every other run.
We left there with 8 pairs of shoes, a can of mace, and a hat between 4 out of the 5 of us. I think the store had a pretty successful 45 minutes. I’m excited to try out my new shoes. George, the lone male in our group joked ”New shoes make us run fast right?” Let’s hope so George!
Runs Through Sprinklers 