I let myself off the hook most Mondays with Middle-aged Musings Monday. Kind of a beginning of the week version of Lame Post Friday. Only I spent my breaks at work (when I usually write my day’s post) staring into space, writing a letter to a friend and calling my husband on my cell. But it’s no worries if I didn’t write: I planned to run after work. That’s my usual back up: run, then write about my run.
Only it wasn’t a very good run (I know, since when has that ever stopped me?). As the Boilermaker looms ever closer, I think I would feel a little more comfortable if my runs were becoming consistently easier and more fun. And why, may I ask, aren’t they? I first learned to love running in the army and the reason was simple. All you have to do is run. And you just magically get better at it! Let me tell you, push ups are not like that. The Arabic language is not like that. Running is.
Only today it was not.
I started out with such confidence, too. The temperature had not gotten up to 90, as the meteorologists had threatened. Uh, I mean predicted. I thought, perhaps I ought to take advantage of the cooler temps and do a real workout with lots of hills or something. At least run for 45 minutes or an hour.
Ten steps out of my house, I realized the weather was not the running heaven for which I had hoped. It was humid! Muggy! I was mugged by the atmosphere! Seriously, right away I could tell that breathing would not be fun for the next however long I ran. As I got to German Street I saw that a tree was coming down right where I would have liked to run if I had been going to run up the hill to Herkimer County Community College. Good! I didn’t want to run there anyways! I would run the relatively level streets on my side of German and be happy about it.
As I ran, I confess I was not so happy. I did enjoy the comfort of my new headband, though. Saturday I bought a new headband at the Sneaker Store in New Hartford. It is a new, high tech kind of material that wicks the sweat away from your body. It is thin, so it doesn’t push my glasses askew. And it is surprisingly absorbent for its thinness. Of course, it was not the miracle I had been hoping for. My face still sweated. That was when I remembered: sweat doesn’t just drip down from the top of my head. There are sweat glands all over my head! Silly me. But I do like my new headband.
I managed to run for a half hour. I thought that was respectable, and quite frankly my legs were telling me a longer run was Just Not Possible. I usually tell them to shut up and keep running. In fact, I told them that today, too, because they wanted me to stop a good eight minutes from home. But I knew I could only keep them going for so long.
Several other people were out running. I thought we all must be training for the Boilermaker. I also thought they all looked as if they were running much better than I was. I wondered how many of them had started training in February, as I did. I felt a little virtuous about the February thing and tried not to think too hard about the not running so good thing.
I did have a middle-aged musing while I ran. It was: maybe I’m too damn middle-aged to run any more! Well, I know darn well that’s not true. After the first Boilermaker I ran, I had a very nice conversation with a guy who had run many Boilermakers, and he was in his 70s. His 70s! 70 year old men run better than me! Oh wait, that wasn’t where I was going with that. On second thought, though, that is a good point. It’s OK if I run like garbage. I’ll do much better when I’m 70!
Mohawk Valley Girl 