Last Saturday was the day I have been dreading for weeks. In fact, I was pretty much dreading the whole weekend. That’s really sad, to dread a weekend!!
First up was intervals, bright and early Friday morning. This was my last set, thankfully, but it was also the hardest: 10 X 400, which means running a quarter-mile as fast as I can, 10 times, with a 1/10 mile rest break in between. A quarter-mile doesn’t sound like much until you’re trying to run it really fast–10 times!
I have run the gamut of interval training during my half marathon training program this summer as far as weather goes, but when I woke up Friday morning, it was cool and clear. Sounds perfect, but even the weather couldn’t give me the motivation I needed. I just was not feeling it Friday morning; I think all the training and 4:30am wake-up calls have finally caught up with me, and I was just tired. I honestly thought about giving up at the halfway point, but instead I just walked that rest break instead of jogging it, and I was able to finish the intervals. They were definitely not my best, by a longshot, but at least I got them done!
It would’ve been nice to just go sit at my desk and rest all day while doing my job, but it just so happened that Friday was my company’s volunteer action day. My department had signed up to go help out at the Parade Company in downtown Detroit. These are the people who make all the floats that are used in the Detroit Thanksgiving Day parade. It’s actually a pretty big parade, and parts of it are nationally televised, so they put a lot of time and effort into their floats. This kind of event probably would’ve been perfect for my artsy little sister, but I was just dreading it. I’m not much for manual labor, and the idea of helping put together floats didn’t appeal to me all that much. :/ But I’m a team player, so I arrived with a smile and clothes that I didn’t mind getting dirty.
My first job was to help clean up a float, which sounded a lot better than painting Styrofoam candles (the other job available).
After that, my next job was to paint a Styrofoam baby dragon with primer. In case you didn’t know, I really hate painting. :p I just don’t have that creative gene, I guess. But, on the other hand, I got to work with a coworker who is really funny, and we had a good time painting that baby dragon.
It took the two of us almost an hour! By the time we were done, we referred to him as “our baby Dragon,” and we joked that we would probably shed a tear when we saw him in the parade on Thanksgiving Day. “Our little boy is all grown up.” 😉
After that, I spent another hour and a half sanding Styrofoam flowers smooth. I worked with the same coworker, and they warned us ahead of time that we would probably be covered in Styrofoam dust by the time we were done. Well, one of us was.
Somehow, my coworker Shawn was almost completely clean when he was done. WTH!?
It took us most of the day to do all that work, and by the time I got home, I was quite tired. I took a 20 minute catnap, and then did some cleaning and organizing. You see, right after my big canning weekend ended, our hot water heater died. 🙁 I am now the proud owner of a brand-new hot water heater and a wallet that is $1400 lighter. *sob* Besides the lost money, we had to do a lot of rearranging in the basement for the installer to get at the old one and install the new one, and I had to do some cleanup work after he left. By the time I was done with that, I was exhausted, and I went to bed early, because, as hectic as Friday was, Saturday was going to be even worse.
My alarm rang at 4:30 Saturday morning, and I was up and out the door by 5:10 to go run 12 miles with my two running buddies, Toddra and Ann. And actually, it turned out to be three running buddies, because they brought along another friend, Toddra’s cousin Jennifer, who also happens to be Ann’s neighbor. I had to laugh when I saw her, and I joked about the fact that only a really crazy person would agree to do a 12 mile run at 5:30 on a Saturday morning, in the dark, on a whim. 😉 But as it turns out, she also has a half marathon next weekend, although not the same one that Ann, Toddra, and I are doing, so she had a 12-miler in the schedule, too!
We met at a high school near the Metropark, with the intent to do two out-and-backs: the first would have us head up by the community center, and then the second would take us into the Metropark and back. I warned them that it might be dark and that safety might be an issue, but we all agreed that there is strength in numbers, and with four of us, we were probably OK.
Unfortunately, I miscalculated just how dark it is at 5:30 in the morning these days; it was REALLY dark, and the path was terribly lit, even on the main road. Since I’m the only one from that area, I was the only one familiar enough with the path to know where I was running. I felt bad for leading them down such a dark path! As we ran, I realized that the path leading up to the community center was going to be impossible for them in the dark, and probably even difficult for me, even though I knew it well. I made a quick decision to alter the route to head into town, hoping there would be enough mileage without us having to run all the way to the next county–literally!
As it turned out, it was a much better idea to go into town, because it was well lit along the main road. We had to go farther than I was hoping…we actually ended up going just to the county line at the river, and then turning around. The sky was just barely starting to lighten when we turned around, and it made for a beautiful view over the river, but I didn’t want to stop at that point and take a picture.
I’ve never run with so many people before, and I found it was fun to run as a group of four, because we had a lot to talk about. Sometimes we would pair up and have two different conversations going! The time flew by pretty quickly, although I do remember hitting mile five and thinking, “Oh my gosh, we still have 7 miles to go!” :p We took a good, long walk break at the halfway point, when we were passing our cars on the way to the Metropark, and then we started up again. As we got into the Metropark, it was starting to get light, and I took the opportunity to snap a few pictures.
By the time we got down to near the turnaround point at mile 8.5, it was a beautiful sunrise.
I was explaining to Jennifer why I take so many pictures (mostly because of my blog),which led to me trying to explain how my blog was named, when Toddra started whispering. I couldn’t figure out what she was saying, but after her third time whispering, I figured she probably wanted me to be quiet for some reason. When I get to talking, I am absolutely the opposite of quiet. (Which of course helped me illustrate why my blog is named what it is. ) I finally figured out that we were passing some duck hunters in the water, and Toddra was trying to tell me to be quiet so I wouldn’t disturb their hunting. Oops.
I still get very embarrassed when I’m caught being loud, because as a child, I was reprimanded for it all the time. So I felt really bad for the duckhunter’s all the way down to the turnaround point. After we headed back north, I was uber-sensitive about where they were so that I would absolutely not disturb them. When we passed them, I made sure that everybody stayed quiet, and then I let them go ahead of me so I could take a picture, because it was actually quite scenic.
Pretty cool, huh? To my surprise, one of them turned around while I was setting up the picture, and he called out to the others, “Hey guys, turn around and smile for the camera!” I had to laugh, and then I said, as loudly as I dared, “I’m sorry I was loud earlier!” The duckhunter yelled back (actually quite loudly), “Not a problem, you weren’t loud!” That made me feel better, and it made me chuckle, too. I don’t get told that too often. 😉
Two and a half more miles, and we were done! We even managed a group picture.
Who smiles after running 12 miles? People who are happy to be done, that’s who! Jennifer was kind enough to take a picture of the three of us who are running the Detroit Women’s Half Marathon next weekend:
I guess we’re as ready as we’ll ever be!
After running, I had to get geared up for the worst part of my weekend: working JJ’s hockey team golf outing fundraiser. Ugh. It’s not that I hate doing it, because I had a lot of fun last year, but the thought of working all day (because they last all day) after running 12 miles was not a pleasant one. After you run 12 miles, you’re supposed to relax and do nothing but eat and drink for the rest of the day, right? That was my thought, at least, but no such luck for me.
The day started out pretty decent, a little on the chilly side, but the sun was out and it was dry. Unfortunately, the sun went behind the clouds, and the wind picked up, and it was in the 50s. By the time I was having around the golf course and done taking pictures of every foursome, my fingers where is numb as they often get in the hockey rink! I did get some decent pictures, and even despite the cold, we had a good time. My husband, uncle, brother-in-law and step-father definitely enjoyed themselves. 😉
That’s my husband on the right. He doesn’t golf, lol!
The one disappointment was dinner. As I mentioned, when I run 12 miles, I like to treat myself, and treat myself well. The golf outing had a prime rib dinner, but it left something to be desired.
That’s a tiny scoop of potatoes, a few paltry pieces of squash, and a very fatty piece of meat. And the worst part? No dessert! I don’t know, I guess I just expected more from a country club, but I guess that’s what I get for my $15. :/ Don’t worry too much about me, however, because I went home and heated up a piece of peanut butter chocolate marble cake that I had in the freezer, topped with ice cream, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce. I burned almost 1200 cal on Saturday, I’ll be damned if I wasn’t going to eat them!
I slept very well Saturday night, and then Sunday was another busy day, full of church, football, and hockey. Jamie’s team did very well on Sunday afternoon, and my boy managed to get a few tackles in.
Normally, he doesn’t get too excited about all the pictures I take of him, but he was pretty excited about that one. 😉
After my weekend was over, I weighed myself, and the results were not overly impressive.
That’s a loss of 1.2, which is certainly better than a game, but considering that last week’s weigh-in was right after my weekend of excess, I knew I was going to lose something. My goal of getting under 125 is still out of reach at this point. And considering I’m running a half marathon on Sunday, and plan to eat accordingly on Sunday night, I’m not feelin’ a big loss for next Monday. :p. But I am feeling that there will be a trip to my favorite burger joint…and wine. 😉
I’ll catch up with you all later this week! Thanks for reading!
Oh man, I hate when I underestimate how dark it’s going to be during a run. I did that a few weeks ago and haven’t gone out without my trusty headlamp since!
At least now you can hopefully enjoy your taper!
Yeah, it was shocking just how dark it was! Which is funny, because I regularly run when it’s that dark during the week, but doing it with friends made it very jarring…probably because I felt the responsibility of being in charge of the route, ha ha! Thanks for commenting, dear!!