Last Place Runner

After having great runs outside as recently as last weekend and even Monday (60 degrees after sundown), it’s been snowing here now for about an hour.

Monday was our last day of nice weather. I wore a cute Vera Wang dress to work to celebrate the last of the warm temperatures, and then I came home and changed for my run. By Tuesday morning, it was ice cold outside.

When the group left for our run Wednesday night, it was 28 degrees. And running in the cold is a horse of a different color! I thought I was going to throw up! But we made it back to the activities center to warm up and stretch. Most of us were coughing our heads off. I mentioned to James that I’d had a much worse run than the week before and he said it was because of the cold. I told him I couldn’t catch my breath and he joked that pretty soon I’d be so fast I would outrun my breath. Runners!

I didn’t sleep well Wednesday night and pretty much woke up for the day at 1:15 Thursday morning. Still coughing, snotty, and my stomach was upset, too. Because why not? So I made a decision to skip the Thursday night run and make it up on my rest day Friday.

I was feeling a little better when I woke up Friday, but it was 16 degrees out and there wasn’t going to be much of a warm up. I woke up 15 minutes ahead of my alarm, so I just got dressed and did my run on the treadmill before work.

As much as I hate to say it, I felt amazing all day long! I thought my run felt way too easy on the treadmill, too! My pace was an all-time best of 12:39. I ran 1.75 miles in 22 minutes and then it was time to get ready for work.

So I’ve been running on the treadmill the past few days. And I don’t really care for it, but yesterday we had ice and rain and now it’s snowing. The 5k is three weeks from yesterday. Sometimes I still think, “God, no, I’m not ready for this!” and other times, like after my run today, I thought I should find a turkey trot to do on Thanksgiving. There aren’t many training days left anyway, and I think I have to run 28 minutes on Thanksgiving, so maybe I’ll really make it fun. Or maybe I’ll just sneak it in on the treadmill. But running on the treadmill doesn’t come with a t-shirt.