Like stealing candy from a baby.....

Hey guys!! All week long I bounced around laughing to myself about how easy Saturday's planned 'long' run of twelve miles would be. After all, I hadn't had a long run that short in AGES, really since we were on vacation in November and didn't have time to do long runs. I was looking forward to getting an early start, knocking it out, and having the full day left ahead of us. So, of course that means it's not going to be that simple!!

Friday am when the alarm went off at 5.32 (which is really 5.26 with the way I set my alarm ahead) I peeked out the window to see if it was raining. The weather guy had predicted rain and colder temps, but nothing was going on so I got up, geared up and off Pips and I went. We hadn't even made it to the end of the street before lightning shot across the entire sky. Since I'm the only moving target that time of the morning we turned around and headed back inside. Less than 5 minutes later rain was pouring down in sheets and the lightning and thunder show was going strong. I promised Pips an afternoon walk and off Brent and I went to work. It stormed most of the day and got colder, colder, colder. The rain was mostly finished when we got home from work but it was pretty artic feeling outside. Brent said he's walk with us and it since it was so cool I TRIED to put Pippin's little cordurory jacket on. He'll wear it, but stands frozen to one spot with it on. Literally. That really isn't the best way to go for a walk so we ended up carrying it with us just in case he changed his mind. He didn't and he didn't even seem to mind the light rain.

We had a great walk which we followed with up with some burritos at our local California style Burrito place (Blue Coast). We had such great visions for this new burrito place. The one in another part of town (the original) is a very cool hang out for 20-somethings. We need more of that in our 'burb. Unfortunately this one is crawling with minivans, bad Mom jeans and people who are generally confused in general about how the whole thing works. They end up with extra burritos and don't know who they belong to! How does that even happen since you build your burrito as you move along the line? They also have a lot of bad burrito folders and people who build skinny burritos. I've gotten so cranky with them that if they don't give me enough of a topping I make them add more. We've decided to never, ever go back there on a weekend. We sat around for ages waiting for a fish taco they simply forgot about. They've been open since October 1st so their "pass" period on being confused is really over. None of the other locations have this problem, either. So, our executive decision is that we will only eat there on weeknights after the gym when we want burritos. If we want a weekend burrito we'll go somewhere else!

We also watched the Ringer with Johnny Knoxville. It was pretty cute, maybe more of a renter than a movie theater trip. It was tastefully done, a big change for JK. The ending was a little strange and abrupt but overall it was a really good movie.

All throughout the evening it got colder and colder and colder. The news guys said we would even get some snow overnight, which I didn't believe because it had just been too warm all week for anything to stick. I set my alarm for 8 hours of sleep and woke up around 7.30. I didn't actually roll out of bed until 8, though. I peeked out the window and it just looked COLD. No sun and there were actually some tiny patches of snow. Really only on the deck and in small patches on the grass, but the most snow we've seen all winter by far! When I took Pips out the wind was biting and the TV said it was 29 degrees outside. It seems like we always have warm weather all week and then when it's time for my long run it's ass cold. The last long run I had in temps that cold (in early Dec) was 21 miles and my face ended up so chapped that my lips were bleeding the following day. NOT attractive.

So, I really wasn't excited about going and neither was Brent. We decided to run from our house and do our normal 6 mile path twice. We didn't head out until 10 am hoping it would be slightly warmer. It was 30 with 15 mph arctic winds. We started out and the wind made our eyes tear up so we had to laugh about that. It was also spitting little tiny bits of snow that kept stabbing me in the eye. Miserable! Oh well, I knew it would be over in less than two hours. We headed out and after about two miles the snow stopped and we were warmed up. It really didn't feel bad after that. We got plenty of strange looks from people driving by and some manual laborers outside gave a look like 'Hey, if you want to be outside so bad why don't you do my job and I'll stay inside and be warm!'. The sidewalks were empty, in two hours we only saw two other walkers, bundled up like Eskimos. We finished the run in 1 hr 58 minutes, just under a 10 mile pace if it was 12 miles. My garmin said exactly 12 miles, Brent's Nike said 12.5 miles so maybe we'll split the difference at 12.25 miles. I think it was longer than 12, but I don't think it was 12.5. It felt nice to stop around 12, I wasn't tired but I was ready to get inside the warm house. (After taking some pics in my winter running gear, enormous running pants and all!!) Mouse, you know which one is for you!!

















We got some Chinese for lunch and visited our local Hallmark store that's going out of business. I picked up a few new books for cheap from there, one of my goals for the year is to read more classics. I spent the afternoon going through our massive amounts of digital pics to take advantage of some great coupons we have for prints from Shutterfly. Before it got dark we headed out for a two mile walk with Pippin. On the weekends we try to get some "long walks" in for him, too. His endurance is really improving. He wasn't even tired after the walk (he used to literally collapse in the foyer) and even wanted to play ball. We've been teaching him the word "football", as in "Bring me your football" so he brings us one of his balls constantly to play.









(Here's my question - aren't ALL houses in TN Southern homes???)


We also watched this new show on Game Show Network we had TiVod earlier in the week. The show is called Anything to Win and this particular episode was all about Rosie Ruiz and the Boston Marathon scam. I knew about it, but really didn't know a lot of the details. It was a great documentary, and even had recent interviews with her. She STILL says she ran it, even though it's so obvious she didn't. She didn't have the body of an elite runner, her legs had zero muscle tone and her form crossing the line was NOT that of an elite runner. When they asked her questions about how she trained she didn't even have answers! I can't imagine lying about something SO obvious for years and years. AND, it's pretty obvious from her appearance she's never run a day since then, either! It was a really good show so I highly recommend TiVoing it.

That's it for now!! I'm cheering for everyone in Phoenix and Houston this morning!!! Good luck!!