Airing of Grievances

Hey, it's Festivus.....time to break out the old family pole!

Good grief, I'm tired this morning. I had a parent ask if they could bring their child by nice and early today because they had to work early. No problem, I said...just PLEASE CALL ME if your plans change, even if it's early, because I'll be up. Got up earlier than usual to be ready for the child, and still nothing a half hour after said child was supposed to be here. The phone rings, and guess who isn't coming today? She said she didn't want to disturb me, even though I asked her to please disturb me, early and often, if her plans changed. That was the only child besides my own who would have been in my care today, so I'm annoyed that I got up earlier than usual for nothing.

Another grievance. I live in Colorado, so people should be able to drive in the snow here, right? It's the Rockies, after all...they shoot commericals here about all things manly and tough, like big off-road trucks, ATV's, cattle, and the like. I've been curiously watching out my window as drivers slip and slide all over, either taking it way too fast or not getting up enough momentum to get anywhere. We live on a corner, and the way the UPS guy rounded it yesterday, I'm wondering if I should keep the kids in the back half of the house so we're protected when he comes crashing through the front of the house.

Enough pissing and moaning, though-I'm just not in to doing that for more than a couple of minutes to get it out and move on. I'm now well underway with this marathon training cycle, and tried something new for my Pfitz general aerobic run with strideouts yesterday. I have to do most of these weekday runs on a treadmill, since my choices are exceptionally early or exceptionally late so that another responsible adult is available to keep an eye on the little turkeys. Anything longer than a few miles on a treadmill feels as awesome as a trip to the dentist to me, but it's typically my only option during the week.

I recently read about another runner breaking up treadmill boredom by doing what probably has an actual technical name, but what I now refer to as "we go up up up, we go down down down" (after an annoying song a friend's child looooooooooves to sing until it's permanently embedded in my brain). I gave it a try last night, and holy moly, instant boredom buster! Nothing fancy...I just started at my usual, middle of the road GA pace, then increased the pace a notch every .25 miles for each quarter mile interval. As I started mile two, I held that pace for a quarter mile, and then stepped back down. Not only did this really make time fly, but it gave me little surges that didn't take anything more out of me. Each two-mile cycle of up and down passed quickly and suddenly I was ready for my strideouts. I have NO idea why I never tried this before! If the treadmill is not your thing, or it is and you want to mix things up, give this a go.

Tomorrow morning's Christmas Eve, and I'll be joining in with a local tradition of a few of the female runners in this area. They go on an early morning run in Santa hats, reindeer antlers, or some other Christmasy costume, and then come back to the home of one of the runners for brunch. They even cover our full riverfront trail loop, which is roughly the distance I needed to do anyway midweek, so I'm excited to be doing something besides a solitary treadmill run. I found some cheap light-up Christmas socks that are delightfully tacky, and will wear them along with my Santa hat.

I have one special shout-out and kudos today, too. I've got a friend who pops in to my blog sometimes, and she recently ran her own personal 5K race on her treadmill after embarking on the Couch to 5K program. There were times when she didn't think she could do it along the way, but she did, on her own, without course support or cheering crowds-which I think is all the more impressive because that's just a runner and their body working together! You know who you are, you kicked butt, and it's an awesome thing. Love the exclamation point on the 5K race, too, in that moment of "did I cover the distance or not?" and adding the extra .1 to be absolutely certain. All runners know a little something about running math, and have stories of trouble combining running with thinking about pace and distance.

I hope everyone has a fun and memorable Christmas, and special thoughts for those who are struggling with any issues or problems during this time. Run long, run strong.