I’ll postpone the review of I Love Sushi. Husband decided to make dinner instead, so I’ll save the review until I can take real, live shots of my favorites.
So, running! Last year, I developed five different routes which I ran really regularly on 5 days of the week – Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Except in my head, the week starts on Sunday. I was very steady and dedicated, and pretty proud of myself. The we went to Bora Bora where I continued to run in the humidity, and I came back with the Mad Tropical Germs or something that kept me at a low-level cold for 6 weeks.
So, I’m trying to get back into it. Last week I ran 4 times. I skipped Christmas Day. This week, so far, I’ve run 3 times, but I missed yesterday morning because I gave blood on Tuesday. I know, I know. It takes blood-letting to get me out of my routine. I will probably make it up tomorrow.
My Thursday running round is perhaps one of the easier ones, and one of the most boring. It has it’s challenges, though. It is essentially a long, slight decline for the first 25 minutes, and then I turn around and have to run back up that incline for the next 25. (First, to be fair, I walk the first and last 10 minutes, and run for 30 in the middle.) Running uphill at the end is never a bad thing. Forces you to pace yourself and keep your head.
Though this route is without drama, it also has the most people I recognize on a regular basis. Not people I know, but people whose schedules also put themselves outside at 5:30 a.m. on Thursday mornings. There’s the tall, old, white-haired man who wears tank tops and is walking his dog. There’s the stocky brunette, who smiles cheerily at me who is walking her dog. There’s the tiny Asian lady who is walking her tiny dogs, one of which barks at me incessantly as I pass in that small dog way.
My favorite is the lady with short blond hair who is out for her brisk walk, not walking her dog. She takes long strides and swings her arms a lot. She has been the most consistent. We were out for our Thursday early-morning exercise together all summer in the heat, when you might get yourself up, not necessarily to go before work, but just to beat the darn sun. She was out again last week in the 39 degree weather. We were both bundled up, but she’s got that same stride. I think I could pick her out in a crowd with that stride.
There’s something so comforting in seeing another person who must drag themselves out of their warm bed to get their exercise in before work. I won’t say it gets me out of bed on Thursday mornings, but I sure do smile and take heart when I see that familiar stride.
On a side note, would I be crazy to enter a 5K this month, just to have a blog entry to share?
Run like the wind, friends!
