Sunday Runday...on a Monday

The unthinkable happened about an hour ago: I broke one of my favorite Nalgene bottles. In my previous life (aka before veterinary medicine sucked me into its clutches) I went to college with the goal of becoming a paleontology professor which meant I took a lot of geology classes. Geology classes, in case you were unaware, are best done outside actually looking at rocks so unless you had a Nalgene bottle for field work you didn't have any geo street cred. Of course being 18-22 year old kids we spent a lot of time hurling our bottles off of things to see if we could get them to break because they are supposedly unbreakable. Mine alone got chucked off the side of a landfill in Niagara Falls during my Environmental Geology class, it went into a mining pit at Gore Mountain during my Problems in Earth History class, it took a trip off the bank of Kashong creek during my Paleontology class and let's not even talk about what happened during my Limnology and Structural Geology classes. And guess what? It never once broke! But today I was carrying my #2 favorite bottle from the Grand Canyon when I dropped it on the way to the kitchen while it was half full which resulted in a huge leaking crack along the bottom. It turns out that hardwood accomplished what granite could not and I'm pretty sad about it. Heartbroken, really.

That was a long paragraph about my Nalgene bottle, you truly don't know my love for them and I am down to two in my fridge when I usually have 4-5. Sad day.

Yesterday was Sunday which means LSD day for my half marathon training group. LSD is not as trippy as it sounds, it stands for Long Slow Distance which is where you work on increasing the distance you run instead of the speed. When I got to the lake to meet with my training group the marathon training group was there too and no one mentioned how far my group was supposed to go. I waited for a while and decided that since I hadn't run much from injuring my foot last weekend I would just run four miles and call it a day. I set off alone so that I wouldn't be too far behind the group and did the first two miles. Mile 2 is where the water station is located at a road intersection and I decided that I didn't want to turn around because I didn't see anyone else doubling back and I didn't want to look like a weenie. I'm sure I looked like a lost puppy for a while turning in circles for a while because I still didn't know where we were supposed to go until I saw someone from my group to follow, hooray!

I ended up using her as my pacer because she was going about my speed and I really wanted to see how far I could push myself to run. I've been wussing out a lot on my own (the day before I did 3.5 miles but walked probably a mile of it) and the whole reason I joined this group is because I knew it would force me to push myself. I ended up running the entire five miles that was the scheduled run and even ran the hill at the end that I hate that goes back into the park! Small victory! I even forced myself to talk to a lady running behind me and she was a total inspiration, she has MS but is training for a half anyway and I felt like a total jerk because I was convinced I couldn't make myself run 4 miles and there she was plugging along. We made plans to run together again on Tuesday since we are about the same speed so I'm excited to go tomorrow. I have given myself the task of talking to one new person a week because in social situations where I don't know anyone I am typically very shy so this week was successful! Last week was too, actually. Not that I remember anyone's name because I am awful at names but baby steps, right?

As for my foot it wasn't very happy. At around mile 3 I started getting a massive cramp across the whole top right where my foot meets my ankle every 15-20 steps. It would hurt so bad I would actually jump up off it and shake it until it would ease up a little and the last 2 miles went like that. I'm sure it was entertaining to watch the crazy girl shaking her foot and wincing. I don't know for sure what I injured but it's something that's pretty ticked at me so I am icing it every night and sleeping with it elevated. It's still technicolored too although that is finally fading.

This post was extremely boring, even to me, so here are some underpants that I want and if they weren't $65 they would be mine. Maybe Santa will bring them because I NEED them! (Yes, I am planning for Christmas already).

You can buy them here!