Crunchy ‘Nanas

My relationship with running has hit a sticky spot.  I think it’s time for a change. For a while anyway. I’d say it’s time to ease off a bit, except well, there’s not much room for easing before it’s a complete cease, as my recent and not-so-recent mileage shows, so I’m just being honest.

I’m tired of plodding. I wouldn’t mind plodding if I still felt energized and peppy. But lately when I run I am just waiting for it to be over. Waiting for it to be over, and making bets on whether the next driver will be courteous, or if they too will try to run me off the road. Do you not see me? This giant yellow fluorescence coming toward you? Really? (I’m also tired of being in a bad mood. I’ve felt so grumpy and just “off” lately.) I don’t mind slow if I still feel vitalized and like I’ve accomplished something. But lately I’m sluggish and it’s a chore, which definitely means it’s time to get off this train, for a while anyway.

We’ve been discussing (for months) doing a half marathon this spring, which would be a good thing - concrete goals are good and I haven’t had one in a while. But looking at it realistically, with how things have been going, I’d spend the training so annoyed with running I wouldn’t get what I wanted out of it. So, I don’t know that that would be a good thing to do.

What would be a good thing to do is ramp up the cycling a bit more AND get my act together and get back in the pool. That would be a very good thing to do.  I might do that sometime. Sometime soon. Splish splash!

I eagerly anticipate the day I don’t need to don layer upon layer of thermal clothing just to go for a bike ride. I was pulling out all the clothes for my Thursday ride this morning, and stacking them methodically on my bed to make sure I had everything I would need - last week I somehow managed to forget my padded shorts and ended up wadding up a t-shirt and shoving it down my pants - because I’m one classy rider! - and the thought occurred to me, “I’m going to fill one washer load from just an hour’s worth of activity”. And even though it’s warmer than it has been, and I’m not allowed to complain about anything because we’ve got a warm vacation booked for the near future, I got a bit wistful for well, sunlight. It’s been completely gray the past few days and it really gets me.

Yesterday, during a bit of visualization, when I was prompted to put myself in my favorite place, a new image came to mind. Instead of finding myself bobbing around in an inner tube in Lake Tahoe, eyes closed, face toward the sun (as usual), yesterday I somehow found myself in an alpine meadow. It was summer (obviously!) and I had just stepped out from the forest into the grassy sunshine. I didn’t know you could feel such warmth in your mind. Oh my god. I could feel the dusty rays striking my arms and the top of my head, I could hear the horse flies buzzing past my ears, I could see the cheerful blue sky. It was so nice.

I think I am done with winter. Done, done, done.  But, I am not complaining, I promise!

(But, I am done.)

I know four months is not that long. I’ve done longer, maybe not happily, but I’ve done longer. But, still October feels like ages ago. Christmas was hard. It was always going to be hard, but with my Grandma’s death a week before the holiday, it was even harder for me not to be home.

Today I get to do the fun bit: I get to stand outside Heathrow arrivals, eager in anticipation, waiting to breathe that little bit easier once I see their plane has landed and easier still when they walk into the arrivals area.

I can’t wait to give my mom a hug.

Me.

As it’s chilly and rainy today, I decided to run at the gym at lunch. Everything was going fine until I realized I’d left the water bottle in the back of the car (which is just lame anyway as I’d listened to it rolling around in the back of the car the whole drive). As I’d already changed, there are water fountains in the gym and I only planned to run 3 miles, I decided to skip getting soaked by a return trip to the car and just get on with business.

I ran 5 kilometers - 3.1 miles - so hardly a marathon, and I am zonked. Completely wiped out! I feel like I ran a race, yet a very bad race - slower than normal and without the happiness, nor the feeling of accomplishment. And no t-shirt. At one point this evening, I decided to put my head down for 20 minutes. In that 20 minutes, while I tried to get the thoughts buzzing around my head and the queasiness to subside, I happened upon a realization. I am not used to running in the “heat”. Most of my runs are now done at a couple degrees above freezing, if I am lucky, with icy wind whipping at my face and layers upon layers of clothing keeping me warm.

California girl gone soft! (Or hard, depending on how you choose to look at it.) Today, I got warm. I sweated warm sweat. It was like old times. You know, when it was summer and I was there, running in the warm sunshine, sweating warm sweat, drinking water during the run.

Yeah okay, drinking water during the run, not just before and after it. Lesson learned: next time, it’s back out into the pouring rain to get the water bottle.

But really, 3 miles?

We were listening to Flight of the Conchords over dinner the other night, and Crunchy husband looks up from his sprouts and says to me, “do you think your parents would like this?”

I thought for a moment, and said, “I’m not sure. It might be too random for them. And they may not get all the references.” The song was Mutha’Uckers and, perfectly timed to make my point, shouts of “on AP, yeah you know me” came from the kitchen speakers. “Like ‘O.P.P.’ They wouldn’t get it.”

Blank stare.

Disbelieving stare back, “you down with O.P.P.? Yeah, you know me!”

Nothing.

I love moments like this. It’s one of the many benefits of marrying a slightly (ahem) older man, who grew up across the world from me. I believe we enrich each other’s lives, give each other glimpses of a completely different worlds. Even if my contributions happen to be tales of Hot 97.7 on the bus to school, middle school dances in the early ’90s and a really, uh suggestive (I can guarantee you when I was 13, I did not get all the references to various meanings of that second P!) Naughty by Nature rap.

Honey - I washed your pants!

Icy pants!