Chased by wild animals!!

Hey guys! I hope you're all having a great week! At least it's 2/5-ths over!

Saturday night we ran some errands and caught this beautiful sunset. It turned out to be a nice evening, no jacket required!









Sunday was beautiful as well. We opened all the windows and let the incredibly strong breezes whip through the house. This kept Pips running from window to window (I guess he doesn't totally get the wind.) It was strong enough that it blew a few shingles off our neighbor's house, I think the news said it was blowing between 45-50 mph Sunday afternoon.










Since I'm tapering I didn't have my 3-mile recovery run, which is the only difference in my normal weekday runs this week. I was hoping to get outside for a walk or some sort of low impact exercise, but we had one nasty task to do - taking all the Christmas decor down. It's really not fun to put up, but taking it down is even worse! It took most of the afternoon to get it down, and the day was pretty much over and we were down to just taking the actual trees down. The boxes we store them in are in our attic, and to get to the attic door you have to empty out a PACKED storage closet. We weren't in the mood for that so we packed everything else up and packed the trees up last night. Of course the vacuum broke while we were sucking up all the garland trash in the floor, so Brent had to run out and get a new belt for the Windtunnel. But, it's all gone so we can no longer be called the last people in the world with their Christmas stuff up! Of course I had lots of help from Brent and especially Pips......









And then it was Monday...ugh....and my boss's return to work after 2 glorious weeks off. It took all of about 2 minutes before we were already 'miscommunicating'. I swear, he speaks a language I don't even get. I know it's not just me, so that makes me feel slightly better. I took two Tylenol before I even went to work yesterday. I didn't sleep well the night before either, and for that I blame Jack Osborne. Last week we TiVod Jack Osborne: Adrenaline Junkie. It's 3 1 hour shows on the Travel Channel documenting how he lost a TON of weight and ended up climbing El Capitan in Yosemite. We've done some tough indoor rock climbing, but that's a nap compared to climbing El Cap. Of course he trained in truly unbelievable places around the world, but his two trainers kicked his butt and didn't baby his celebrity ass at all. For probably the first time in his life he actually had to work at something. The final episode documents their five day climb up El Cap, where they literally slept hanging on the hangy things climbers use when they camp on the rocks. How frightening! So, all that to say in MY sleep I was climbing El Cap and sleeping on one of those frightening tarps! Not a restful night of sleep! Rock climbing is a blast, although I doubt I'll ever climb El Cap I would like to try at least one outdoor rock climb sometime in my life. It was a great show, so if you're looking for something to TiVo I'd highly recommend it.

In running news, last night I did 5 miles on the boring treadmill. I was zonked from putting up with the retard boss all day, so I didn't have the energy to run outside when we got home and it was fairly late by the time we had the Christmas junk finally stored back in the attic. I did manage to watch most of the new Bachelor while running. I've never been a big Bachelor fan, pretty much the only times I see it are when I'm working out indoors. However, this guy is a doctor from RIGHT HERE in Nashville, so that's pretty exciting. And, for a change he seems pretty normal and down to earth. Some of his background stuff actually showed him running here, and I'd put money on that he was running in Percy Warner Park (our only real place with actual dirt trails.) What kills me about these shows is that somehow they always manage to find one psycho with eggs that are melting, and she doesn't find that admitting that to someone within 5 minutes of meeting them is strange or a turnoff. The one this season was a doctor, so being a psycho obviously has nothing to do with your professional/education level. She went WAYYY off the deep end and wanted to know what was so wrong with her. I give the Bach props for saying he wasn't ready to reproduce and asking her to go. (She always referred to it as 'i'm ready to reproduce', reproduce this, reproduce that - it sounded like a total science experiment.) Anyway, I doubt I'll set my TiVo for it but if it's on and I'm stuck on the treadmill I'll probably tune in.

Tonight was 6 miles. It was a gorgeous day so it would have been a waste to run inside. Brent wasn't feeling good (and even took a nap at lunch with some company - a bonus of working close to home) so I had to go it alone. I decided to do 4 laps at the hospital, plus the mile to and from. Even with all my reflectivity cars were forcing me into the uneven side in the short distance before the sidewalk starts heading out of our subdivision. Very annoying. It's much tougher alone than with Brent, usually two people they won't play chicken with. One day, on a really bad day, I will probably hose their cars down with pepper spray. So, everything is going fine and dandy, and I'm on my last lap at the hospital. I ran the first mile a little under 9 (it was SO nice outside and I was fired up about the rude drivers) then I slowed miles 2 and 3 down to marathon pace (around 10), then sped up for miles 4 & 5 (to right around 9). Just as I was finishing the last lap (ending mile 5) I met Crazy Walking Man. This guy walks EVERYWHERE. I swear he walks 24/7. We've seen him 15 miles across town, walking. And he doesn't walk quickly, or look like he's doing anything other than sleepwalking. He has the appearance of being zoned out at all times. I waved a little as I met him, got his usual blank stare, and kept going. Just past him there's a small patch of woods and as I was approaching I heard MASSIVE running towards me, even with my ipod going I could heard something tearing it up to get out of the woods. I've seen quite a few wild animals around the hospital - loads of bunnies, skunks and deer. Last summer I was pretty much chased by a deer there, but I had a bit more warning. So, I did what any reasonable person would do and leapt off the side of the trail, screamed "Get BACK!" and started Dazing the hell out of the woods. I'm not sure what animal groups it works on, but I was willing to take that chance. Out come two enormous cats, chasing each other. We were all scared of each other at that point, and I'm not sure who was the most scared! They ran back into the woods and I kept on going. I doubt Crazy Walking Man would have helped me if I was being attacked, he won't even scoot over if you say "Excuse Me" when you're coming up behind him. When I got home and told Brent he asked me if they were jungle cats, and I don't think they were but they were pretty frickin' big. One neighbor did say he has seen wolves near the hospital, so maybe these were cat wolves.

That's it for now! Congrats to someone in Bloomingdale, Illinois who came from http://www.262miles.blogspot.com/ (Dallen's blog) last night at 21:19. They were my 8,000th visitor since I started tracking this stuff on June 18th. Woo hoo!!

Rachel

Exercise-
Thurs - 1 mile am walk with Pips, 6 miles treadmill
Friday - 1/3 mile am walk with Pips (he's not a fan of snow/sleet)
Sat - 19 mile run
Sun - rest
Mon - 1 mile am walk with Pips, 5 miles on the treadmill
Tues - 1 mile am walk wit Pips, 6 miles outdoors