Enter/Return

It's been too long! My iPad doesn't make it as easy to post on Blogger as I would like, and I'm super busy all the time now, so I've been inactive. I'm lucky to keep my watch battery from dying-- I plug it in so infrequently.

Today I ran 8 miles with Justin and Jimmy around the slavery museum. It was what has become the normal Thursday. Bob and JD no longer attend on Wednesday because Bob goes to CrossFit on Monday & Wednesday, so they've moved their date-day to Thursday. But JD is out of town, so Bob didn't come. It was cold! We were all wearing long sleeves and my fingers were cold most of the way through. It was also windy. But it was a normal run. Deep thoughts and conversations; some which shouldn't be shared on the internet.

This afternoon I went to JM for the Walker-Grant Faculty/Student track meet. It's the last track day of the season, with our last meet this coming Saturday at Orange. I was able to come because running club was cancelled administratively. I forgot to bring socks, and opted not to bring racing shoes, so I just ran without socks in my trainers. Not a problem. Dave Lovegrove and I warmed up 5 laps around the track at a brisk 7:30 pace (no Garmin). I did some light stretching and then raced a 100. I pulled up about 10 meters from the line when my left hamstring or something pulled HARD. Immense pain. I'm an idiot. So now I sit here at 8:30 in total pain. I limped around the rest of the time there. At dinner afterwards, I wanted to cry. It hurts so bad. I've iced with a bag of peas and now I've got icey hot on, which is helping.

Despite running the 100 and ruining my life in doing so, I managed to jog a mile with a girl and try to pace her. It wasn't an all-out effort for her, because of the meet, but we ran faster than I think either of us were planning for her to. I was surprised with the 92 first lap. Our splits were 1:32, 3:17, 4:58. I told her to try to kick down a boy in the last 100, but he looked back and motored off. She still finished in 6:32 to my 6:35. My leg felt better as I progressed through it, but it was a pretty painful 6:35. Maybe not the most painful of my life, but up there...

Lastly, some girls asked me to be on their 4x4 team. I told them I needed to go first so that they could make up for me. I did pretty well through, despite feeling like my leg was bleeding it was in so much pain. There were 4 teams: middle school girls (with me), adults (running an 8x200m), and two middle school boys teams. I was in lane 1, so it looked like I was really far back, but I knew better. KC was running the 2nd leg of the adult team, and she got the baton right around the same time I got to the 200. We were almost neck and neck coming down the homestretch. I tried to stay even with her, without trying to pass her, because I didn't want to hurt myself more. But it's so hard, because we're so damn competitive! If she'd been way ahead, I could have jogged it in. If she'd been way behind, I wouldn't have cared if she caught up. Our team got 2nd, because the adults team had 4 men in the last 4 legs, and we got blown away towards the end.

A fun afternoon, sullied by my stupidity running a 100. I can't even take solace in the fact that I got 2nd in the heat-- because it was the slow heat of adults and slower boys probably.

I'll try to post more frequently...