Run

Lots happened, I’m not sure how much I can recall.  On Saturday I decided to tackle this month’s cleaning project, the shed.  The inside of the shed wasn’t really messy at all.  I was able to organize the interior in 20 minutes.  It is the outside that is a mess.  Over time in the humid Florida conditions the vinyl siding gets a nasty coating of mildew and scuzz on it.  To clean it I use the pressure washer.  I power washed all 4 sides as well as the roof.  It was quite windy so as I sprayed I got a lot of water vapor blown back on me.  By the time I was done I was pretty much soaked. Ali was out most of the day Saturday.  After I got done with the shed I did a few more little things around the house before settling in for some WoW.

On Saturday evening Ali and I needed to get to sleep early since the alarm was set for 4:15 am to get up for the half marathon.  I was not happy to crawl out of bed at such an early hour.  Multiply that times 100 and that is how Ali felt about getting up.  When I took Nicki out it felt quite chilly as a cold front had blown through during the night, the temp was in the mid 50’s.  Even though it felt quite chilly, for some reason I decided to wear shorts to work the event.  For some reason I used the logic that once the sun came out things would warm up.  Of course none of this was based on any forecast data.  If I would have looked I would have seen that the temperature was not predicted to get much above 60 with clouds.  Well needless to say I froze my ass off.

This year instead of working a water stop I hung with the guy doing the timing for the race, trying to pick up more pointers for when I implement our clubs timing system.  It’s quite the scene having 1200 runners descend on one location.  The line of 30 porto-potties was impressive in itself.  Speaking of the potties, the cold weather of course meant I had to use one.  I hate using these things.  I normally hold my breath as long as possible and when I do finally have to breath it is always through my mouth.  I never dare look to my right into the horrible tank filled with human excrement.  I look at the urinal, nothing else. I have NEVER done a number two in one of these things that I can remember.  Well wait there may have been one time at the Rumble, not sure.  Ali had to break down and use the porto-potties too.  She opened the door of one and stood witness to a pile of shit sitting on top of the seat area.  Evidently someone had poor aim, disgusting.

 The race went fine.  A couple times it started to rain lightly but nothing serious.  It’s always interesting watching people finish.  Some people come across all business, no emotion.  Others point to the sky and yell loudly.  We only had one person puke as they crossed.  There were some inspiring finishers as well like the two military guys that ran the entire race in camouflage gear and COMBAT boots.  Then there was the group of fireman that ran the race in their gear. 

 The temperature actually felt like it dropped once the sun came out.  The cool temps are good if you are running a race, they suck if you are standing around in your shorts for 4 or 5 hours.  I was chilled to the bone.  Repeatedly I internally cursed myself for being so stupid and not wearing something warmer.  Late in the morning the sun broke through occasionally which took a bit of the chill of thankfully.  The guy that won the race covered the 13.1 miles in an hour and 5 minutes, amazing.  Just like last year it was a Kenyan that won the race.

After helping to clean up Ali and piled into the car and decided to stop at Applebee’s on the way home for lunch.  The heat in the car felt so good.  Originally Ali had said something about us maybe starting on our other outdoor project of the weekend Sunday afternoon.  I told her I had no desire to go back outside the rest of the day, so we didn’t. 

 I watched both playoff games Sunday afternoon/night.  The New England game was close, closer than the score indicated.  If the Chargers would have been able to turn a couple of those field goals into TD’s they could have pulled the upset. But the game I was really interested in was the Packer game.  I had adopted the Packers as the team I was pulling for in the playoffs, I have always been a Brett Farve fan.  I was looking forward to seeing the game take place in the frigid conditions.  It lived up to the expectations with the game time temp being -1 and dropping from there.

Boy it looked cold.  The coach of the Giants HAS to have at least mild frostbite on his face, it was bright shiny red.  It was a great game that went back and forth the entire way.  Green Bay got several lucky breaks that made me feel like they were destined to win even though the Giants actually were playing better.  The Packers dodged another bullet at the end of regulation when the Giant kicker badly missed a game winning FG attempt.    Again fortune smiled on the Packers when they won the coin toss in overtime and elected to take the ball.  However their luck ran out when Brett Farve threw a bad interception that the Giants turned into a game winning field goal.  I felt really bad after the loss.  Almost as bad as I would have if it was the Eagles.  It would have been such a storybook finish to Brett’s career to get back to the Super Bowl and beat the mighty Patriots.  Oh well, you can’t always have happy endings.

On Monday we did something we hadn’t done in a long time, went to the track and ran.  I had just put in a treadmill 5k on Friday so I was a bit worried about running again so soon.  But my knees felt ok so I figured I’d give it a go.  Running outside definitely is more difficult than treadmill running.  First of all you have to actually propel your body forward instead of a moving track doing it for you and you also have to deal with temperature and wind.  The temperature was fine but the wind was quite strong.  Each time we entered the one turn we got smacked in the face with a stiff breeze that made you feel like you were running in place.  We put in two miles which was good enough.  Going for the run was Ali’s suggestion.  She seems to have rejuvenated her interest in running a bit.  I’ll be happy to accompany her on her runs as long as my body allows me to.

Once we got back we tackled pruning/removing damaged plant life from the frost.  There was a lot to remove.  I filled up the bed of my truck three times with dead stuff.  It once again allowed me to chastise my stupidity regarding the sprinkler experiment.  I went crazy in the one bed that was overgrown with a fern that began life in a pot.  Over time it spread throughout the bed and now covered all of it.  Some of it was damaged from the ice and some was not.  I decided it all would go.  Ali said she didn’t like the way it looked anyway.  So I pulled and raked until the bed was clear of ferns, both dead and alive.   Ali’s back was sore so we wrapped things up after I yanked the ferns out.  She tweaked it digging out a trench to plant some potatoes in the garden.

There are other things I know that popped into my head as bloggable but I can’t recall them right now.  I have a lot going on right now.