01 - Spring Is Sort of Just Vapor-Pissing at My Face

I ran yesterday and the day before. It was 66° and 60° respectively. Straight BALLIN’ weather. The kind of weather that you get randomly in the middle of March and when you’re a high school senior everyone at the senior lot sort of just hangs outside in the morning together because of how nice the weather is and how young and free and alive we all feel again finally, I mean FINALLY, yes! Spring, baby. Hell yeah.

Different thing today. 40° real feel. Fog. Misty bullshit fake rain the entire time. The kinda rain that you wouldn’t step outside and be like “oh, it’s raining, let me grab an umbrella,” but then you spend an hour outside and somehow your shirt is just like drenched from the constant vapor spit.

I put on my kit for the day—short sleeve shirt and shorts, little dumb looking running hat. I would’ve liked lightweight pants and a long sleeve but I ran the past two days in this kit so it was just…there. It was there, hanging behind the bathroom door, ready for another go.

I didn’t bring my gloves with me either, because I am stupid.

When I got to the park located approximately half a mile from my house, my hands were cold and I felt ever-so-slightly damp. Uncomfortable. No one was parked in the parking lot, should’ve been a sign that this was not the ideal moment for a run. Spring waits for no man, not even the daytime dog-walkers of this tiny little loop around a pond.

I don’t run at the park. The loop is only slightly longer than 1k. I’m a masochist but I’m not insane. I use the park as a hub for different routes I’ve created over the years that all start and end at the park. I decided to go to my "climbing" route today, because if I’m doing this thing I might as well do it.

I was warm by mile 2. Cursing and babbling as I was slowly plodding up the sidewalk as cars whizzed by. Suburbs running in all it’s glory; worrying constantly that a distracted driver will hop the curb and smear me into Raspberry Runner’s Jelly. Please, no, thanks.

Ran up a long hill then ran around at another park that doesn’t have any kind of walker’s path (and as a result, has no people at it) and then backtracked a little to go grab another hill on a side road and then another hill on a different side road. (I told you this was the climbing route.)

I skipped one extra road/hill because I didn’t have time to get slaughtered by it. It is very long, very steep. I am weak.

Running back, I finally set my body on cruise control as I had no more major hills to climb. All downhill and flat with one or two minor climbs left to go. The view, well the view still sucked because this was a shitfog and pissrain day.

Back to the park, a half-loop past some walker-dogs and dog-walkers and then back home.

Somehow drenched, even though it wasn’t raining. Tired, no doubt a little sore tomorrow. I wasn’t moving fast by any means but hey, it’s Spring and I’m running. I guess that’s the whole thing with this.

I got home and ate a really big bowl of fresh berries because I bought them last week and never touched them but now my entire life is going to change and I’m going to self-actualize into this amazing version of me so I ate all those berries and was like oh yeah I’m awesome now and then ten minutes later I ate a plate full of Girl Scout cookies because hell yeah I am still the same person, literally all I did was go for a run.

This route usually makes up a good amount of my regular runs. It’s hilly and it’s got sidewalks or non-car-paths for 95% of the entire route. This version of the route was 7 miles but I can stretch it to about 8.5 with that extra hill.

But this is a blognewsletterfart about running all Spring. Using both LEGG and BRAIN. So I’m going to try to run other routes, new routes, maybe even a race or two. On days when the route repeats, I’ll try to write something more interesting, like the history of running, or the history of my running, or what you should eat before during and after runs.

Oh and here’s a pic of little tiny planties coming up through some ugly red rocks on the sidewalk. Spring, etc.

Running Stats:

7.04 miles
in
1:13:38
so it was
5.7mph on average
with
1017 feet of climb
and I’ve run
7.04 miles this Spring.