Damn nature, you scary!

I intended to write a post with this title after a recent experience in which a moth or something like it flew directly into my face, startling the crap out of me, a pheasant ran out of the bushes when I ran by, startling the crap out of me, and then flock (gaggle?) of Canadian geese started hover over me like they were plotting to dive bomb me, scaring the crap out of me. That was a lot of scariness for a 3 mile run.

Today I set out on a 4.5 mile run. My training plan called for 5.5, but I planned out a perfect 4.5 mile route, and I didn't run all week, so I figured I could cheat a bit. (THIS IS WHY I NEED A RUNNING PARTNER!) Most of the time I run through trails near my house, but because I wanted to be able to track my mileage, I decided to try a new route. I told D about my new route and said, "Just in case I don't come back because I got eaten by a dog, you will be able to find my body."  To which he said, "Oh yeah, there are dogs up there. They stayed on their property when I went by, but they are not on a leash, and they were growling and barking." Oh great! So I set off on my run and within 5 minutes I was confronted by my first off-leash growly, scary dog. My immediate reaction was to cross my arms so that it couldn't bite my hands. Surprisingly, it did not leave its property. I wonder if they have the magic invisible fence or if it is just really well trained? Then the next house also had an off-leash dog. It barked at me, but did not move either. My route started to take me in to more remote parts of town, and some people had what looked like bear-proof trash boxes. I mean, maybe they are just to keep out the racoons, but it looked like it was to prevent bears, which made me nervous. Also, there were lots of bushes, a few abandoned houses and barns, and a large cemetery. I really started to feel like I was in a horror movie. Good thing I never watch them because my imagination might have gotten the better of me. After a couple more scary dogs, I was back on Main Street, where I could relax again.

The route was also VERY hilly, something I normally try to avoid, but which is largely unavoidable here in Sackville. I think the adrenaline from my fear really helped me because I ran up almost all the hills with no problems. There was one huge one that got me though, and I had to walk to the top. Other than that, I was pretty pleased with my hill running abilities. Jenni wouldn't even recognize me any more!

Distance: 4.5 miles on pavement
Number of stars: 4
Lessons learned: Stick to the main streets when running around here.
Song that rocked my run: Hey Ya by Outkast

Slacker

I have been slacking on both the running and the blogging fronts. Starting school is kicking my butt! Tomorrow I the Terry Fox run across the Confederation Bridge (more about this in my next post), and I feel very unprepared. Most of the runs I have been doing over the past month have been around 3-4 miles. I only managed to squeeze in one 6.5 mile run a couple of weeks ago. This makes me nervous. I am also really excited because I miss running long distances.

Most of my runs lately have been rather enjoyable. My most enjoyable recent run was my first run in Sackville after returning from Vancouver. It was a near-perfect running day in my opinion. Of course, for me a perfect running day involves rain, so it may not be everyone's idea of perfect. This particular day was delightfully cool, but not too cold to have to wear gloves or anything, and there were dark ominous clouds hanging over my town, but with bursts of sunshine visible in the distance. The sky just looked amazing. And the route I run, down main street is on a hill above the surrounding farmland and swamp (err...marshland). The view was amazing and the mixture of dark clouds with pockets of blue sky just looked so damn cool. I was also listening to new running music because I was DAMN SICK of my old mix of 200 songs that I have been listening to since last November.  I was listening to songs from a mix CD that my BFF made me, songs I would normally not think to run to, and it was delightful. This inspired me to make a while new running playlist for my iPod, which will be tested officially in tomorrow's run.

Distance: 3.5 miles
Number of stars: 5!
Lessons learned: Musical selections should be rotated more than once per year!
Song that rocked my run: Jolene by Dolly Parton
Song that made me dance while running: Say Hey by Michael Franti & Spearhead

How can you not dance to this song?!?

Oh, excuses, silly little things

I would like to say that I am getting better with the excuses. And I think I can say that. I am still making them, but they are less frequent and less convincing. On Monday I did not go to the beach as planned. It was raining, and I would have had to stand in the rain post-run to wait for D to get out of a meeting and then drive home all wet for 40 minutes. This sounded like a bad idea. So I didn't run on Monday. On Tuesday, I felt the whole, "I don't have time to run because I need to go to work" feeling, so I compromised. Instead of doing my 6 miles, I just did 3 and decided to postpone my long run until the weekend. So now I am a week behind. Hopefully being behind on my training plan will light a fire under my ass and keep me more motivated.

I was talking to a friend last night who is an avid runner, and we were discussing his fairly severe addiction to running. The thought of potentially not being able to run for a few weeks because of an injury made him rather distressed. I was almost jealous. I mean, I call myself a runaholic (at least on this blog), but I don't feel his intense desire to run. I feel like that makes my runaholism even more hardcore though. I mean, I am not that good at it, half the time I don't even like doing it or don't want to do it, but yet I keep doing it. (Maybe that should be our new tag line. "Running: We aren't good at it, we don't really like it, but we keep doing it.") That sounds like an addiction to me. That being said, I do long for running. I crave it when I am not doing it regularly. So why, then, do I make so many damn excuses not to do it. Hmmm, maybe I should become a psychologist so I can study this sort of ridiculous human behavior.

Back to my run on Tuesday, though. It was actually really good. I ran at the Waterfowl Park and although it was humid as hell, I still felt good while running. No wanting to die at all! I finally saw some fowl at the Waterfowl Park, but it was more scary than enjoyable. I was running along the trail when I came across a gaggle of about 12 Canadian geese that were blocking the path. As I approached them, I made lots of noise, clapping, yelling, and stomping my feet, but they just stared at me. When I got within about 10 feet of them, I realized that they weren't going anywhere, and I certainly was not going to run through the middle of a gaggle of geese. I have heard that Canadian geese can be vicious (or is that swans?) So, I just turned around and started running the other way. When I circled back around to that part of the trail about 30 minutes later, they were still there! In the exact same formation! Fortunately there is a bridge that crosses over through the middle of the park, so I was able to avoid them without having to run all the way back the way I came. Although if I had run back the way I came, I probably would have ended up running that 6 miles I was supposed to run. I guess the geese were trying to tell me something. Oh well.

Distance: 3.5 miles - mostly trails
Lessons learned: I really need a GPS watch to accurately track my run distances
Song that rocked my run: Rag and Bone by The White Stripes

Some Sackville Scenery

After my 5 mile run last week, chronicled here, I made D drive me around so I could get some pictures of my route. He is somewhat impatient and did not stop completely at a few of the places where I wanted to take pictures, so some are a little crooked and maybe a bit blurry.

You might notice how rural it is. Most of these pictures were taken along my own street.  

I am not gonna lie; this abandoned building freaks me out just a bit. (That reminds me, I need to get a picture of the cemetary that is a couple lots down.)

These are the cows that freaked the hell out of me on my run. By the time I went back to take the picture, they were much further from the fence.

Here are some horses, too. There are also sheep at another farm on my street, but I forgot to take their picture.

Some more farms:

And the lake:

God, I miss high rises.

Keeping on schedule

I have been surprising myself by actually sticking to the schedule as set out by Austin Fit. I did a few short 25 minute runs on the weekdays and then did the scheduled 5 miles on Saturday. I took a new route on Saturday, down one of the trails in my neighbourhood (can I spell like a Canadian here?). At first I was a little nervous because the beginning of the trail was really narrow and surrounded on both sides by trees. I almost turned back, but I kept on trucking and within a couple of minutes, it opened up to a wider trail with farms on both sides. I definitely felt safer, that was until I came within 2 feet of a cow. She was standing right at the edge of the trail. Behind a fence, but RIGHT THERE! I say that I love cows, and I collect pictures and figurines of them, but whenever I have been anywhere near a real cow I am terrified! This cow was HUGE. As were all of its nearby friends. Added to the cow terror was the fact that I was running head on into the strongest wind I have ever experienced on a run. I felt like I was in a wind tunnel. I think that added at least a half a mile to my journey since the wind kept pushing me back. It was hard, too!

While running, I was contemplating about the fact that most of my runs lately have felt un-good. I just can't seem to get into the groove where I forget about time and just wanna keep running. Or at least to a point where I am not looking at my watch every 45 seconds. I miss that. I want that. What I really need is Jenni to tell me stories while I run. That always makes my runs go nicely. Maybe in addition to the blog, Jenni needs to do a podcast that I can listen to while I run. Or maybe I should just find a really interesting podcast to listen to while I run. Hmmm. Will have to look into that.

I did it! (Sorta)

Well it appears this blogging thing is actually working for motivation and accountability. (At least for me.)

Today I set out on my planned 4 mile run. My stomach was KILLING me, but I decided that a run might help. Ha. After approximately 30 seconds of running, the pain felt as though my lower intestine had grown spikes and was stabbing my stomach and other intestines as I ran. Not fun! So I quit. But then I remembered that I had a blog to report to, and I didn't want to have to say that I failed again. So, I sucked it up and started running again. Today, I went to the Waterfowl Park for the first time. There are a few trails both around it and through it. I had planned a route that went from my house to the park, around the trails and back. Unfortunately, it looks a lot easier on the map that it did in the park. I got a bit confused and ended up exiting to early, so I think I only ran about 3.5 miles.

I did not see any waterfowl in Waterfowl Park, but I did see a lot of poop that appeared to have come from some sort of large birds. Parts of the park were pretty bushy, and I was a bit nervous about running by myself in the bush. Then I remembered that Sackville is such a safe place. It's not like I was in Surrey or something! My worries were alleviated for a brief moment until a heard a loud noise that sounded like a bear. On hindsight, it was probably a car since I was running near the road and was listening to my music quite loudly, but in the moment I went on high alert looking for anything that might come out to eat me. I need to do some googling to see what kinds of wildlife I need to be afraid of around here.

After the run, I thought my stomach felt a bit better, but that only lasted about 5 minutes until I drank some water and the pain came back with a vengance.

Distance: approx 3.5 miles on pavement, dirt trails and wooden bridges.
Lessons learned: Running alone in the bush is scary
Song that rocked my run: Seven Nation Army - White Stripes

Second Sackville Run = Success

Wow, my run was definitely not as zen as Jenni's today, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. After reading Jenni's thoughts on running for the sake of running and being in the moment, I can only imagine that my next run will be even better.

Today I tackled the same 2.6 miles from Friday, but at a cooler temperature and and a better level of hydration. On average it was definitely better than my first Sackville run. At first as I was running up and down the rolling hills I thought that I would definitely not want to run back up and down the same hills. These are not very motivating thoughts to have while running. There is a reason I generally avoid hills like the plague - I hate them. If Jenni would have been with me, she would have said something like, "We got this!" or "Don't look at the hill, just look at the ground." It is not nearly as convincing when I tell myself. Soon enough though, I got into the running zone and barely noticed the hills. I finished in a reasonable time and felt grrrrreat! For the rest of the day, I was feeling a little less great. Another reason why I generally avoid hills is because they give me shin splints. After my bad run the other day, I had mild shin splints. After my run today I had such bad shin splints that I could barely walk. My next run will definitely be on a flat surface!

My plan is to do 4 flat miles on a trail on Tuesday. Now that I have announced it publicly, I will have to do it.

Next time I do my 2.6 mile run though, I am definitely bringing a camera. There are sheep and cows and tractors and everything along the route. Ridiculous. I live in the boonies.

Today's summary
Distance: 2.6 miles, mostly pavement
Lessons learned: Hills suck especially when you are out of shape
Song that rocked my run: Private Idaho - The B52s

First Sackville Run = Fail

I left Austin, Texas on May 30 knowing that I would be traveling for two weeks before I would be in my new house in Sackville, NB. I packed a large quantity of running clothes because I knew I would have nothing to do for 2 weeks except run. Yay! Except I totally underestimated the power of my own laziness. Without Jenni there to force me out of bed and into my running shoes, I just stayed in bed and sometimes on the couch. In the entire two weeks, I only ran once, and it was on a treadmill!

I moved into my new house 4 days ago and every day since then I have vowed to go for a run "tomorrow." Conveniently, tomorrow never came. Yesterday my excuse was eating too many chips. Today my excuse was getting up to late. Finally Jenni convinced me to JUST DO IT, DAMMIT. So I did. I set out for my run at 2 pm. It was a lovely breezy day here in Sackville, and it felt amazing to get out running. I felt so amazing that I didn't even mind the rolling hills on my short 2.6 mile run/walk. Usually I avoid hills at all costs, but today I loved them. Well, at least for the first 11-12 minutes. I was running too fast and then the sun came out and the wind died down and it was damn hot. I wasn't very well hydrated, but I had thought to myself, well it's not like it is Texas. But let me tell you, it sure felt like it. I was hot and dehydrated and miserable, so the last 1.3 miles of my run consisted mostly of me running for 30 seconds to a minute and then walking for 3 minutes. It was pathetic. I even faked an injury because these obnoxious high school kids kept driving past me and yelling things. I was embarrassed that I was barely running, so I started limping. Seriously.

Summary:

Route: 2.6 miles, mostly pavement
Time: I don't even want to know.
Lessons learned: 1) Don't run while dehydrated. 2) Don't run in the peak afternoon sun even if you live in Canada.