It’s Sunday Running Commentary! When I got up this morning (at a leisurely but not as late as I would have liked) 6 a.m., I said, “It would be a good idea if I went running.” I was bearing in mind a recent note to self: do not go three days without running. It had been two. Regular readers may recall that it is a trick I use to get myself to do what is good for me: I say, “It would be a good idea if…” as opposed to, “I should…” Sometimes it works. Today it did.
I wore my ARMY t-shirt with the reflective doo-dah on the back, because it seemed the sun was not quite up. By the time I had wrestled myself into two sports bras (do NOT tell me, “TMI!”), it was not as dark as it had seemed, but a bit of reflective stuff is not a bad idea on a run. Off I went.
As I reached the end of the driveway I saw the most beautiful sky. The rising sun was making a lovely pink texture on the bottom sides of lots of clouds. It was to the left of me as I ran towards German Street. I wondered if it was a red sky at morning (sailors take warning). I pondered, as I have since I first heard that expression, if there was a qualitative difference between red skies and pink skies. And how about orange skies? Anyways, I’m not a sailor, so I have never been too exercised over the whole idea.
I turned left onto German, so I could enjoy the sky. I saw our paper deliverers across the road and waved at them. Our paper deliverers are awesome. So prompt and reliable, and they seem to have a vast territory. My plan was to run up Main Street, down the path over what used to be a hydraulic canal (does that path have a name?) then on to the end of German, via a street that runs parallel, and back down German, going up and down the dead end streets. It is what I think of as my Sunday Dead End Run. As my run time increases, I can add more dead end streets. My run time is back down (I’ve had a bad summer, running-wise), so I wondered how few dead ends I would make today.
As it turned out, very few. OK, just one. And I suffered an injury. Not much of one. As I approached the end of the street that ends near the parking lot of the HARC building (another dead end but not one that forces me to turn around, so ah ha ha), I ran around a car parked across the sidewalk. I thought to get back on the sidewalk for the little bit of it that was left, then I tripped on the curb and went down. Damn! How clumsy of me. I scraped my knee but did not pause to check how badly. It didn’t feel too bad. I had landed on one hand too but thought I had done even less damage there. Mostly some gravel. This was fine. I would be bad ass enough not to worry about it (although I planned to mention it in my blog post).
It was not, however, a particularly bad ass run. I was ready for the cool shower portion of my day well before I stopped running. I enjoyed it, despite being sweaty, tired and (slightly) injured. I like looking at people’s houses, envying features like screened-in porches and wondering if I can imitate certain garden features. For example, I saw a chair with a potted plant sitting underneath the space where the seat was missing, vines climbing up the chair back. Do I have a broken old chair I can use that way? Maybe I could find one at a garage sale. I saw a very long clothesline. My clothesline is not nearly that long but I like it. Is it supposed to rain today? My bunions are non-committal.
I ended up running 30 minutes. My goal had been 28, approximately ten percent over the 25 minutes I ran last Sunday. I felt pretty pleased about it. I feel pretty pleased that I have made my blog post prior to 8 a.m. What other ambitious things can I get done today? The sky’s the limit! Incidentally, it stopped being pink soon into my run. I think I’ll check and see if it’s grey.
Mohawk Valley Girl 