Despite the darkness, the cold, the alternating pains in my right foot and left hip, post-marathon madness, and my general tendency towards inertia, I managed to get in 82 miles this month, the lowest mileage month since June. And in June, I was here:
It turns out that if you run 82 miles in a month instead of say, 211 like I did in September, then you gain weight. Well, unless you're in Russia and you're walking 9 or 10 hours a day and not eating enough because you didn't learn any food words and don't eat meat. But here in the good old U.S. of A., I sit and think for a living. So now I am in the unenviable position of not having my pants fit and having to be rigid about food (yay! just in time for the holidays!). Until whatever is going on with my foot/hip clears up and I can run normally again. And by normally I mean 40 to 50 mile weeks.
It was stinking cold again this morning. On Tuesday, it was 5 when little boy & I left the house for early orchestra rehearsal. On Wednesday, it was 27 in the morning when poochie & I ran 6 miles. It seemed warm and I wore a jacket and was too hot. Yesterday it was 8 when I drove little boy to school. This morning it was 4 with a 17 mph wind. I had clothes laid out for running outdoors, but I saw the weather and headed for the treadmill. That's too cold for people (and dogs, well, unless they're huskies) to be outside for an hour.
They're forecasting a snowstorm for tomorrow. I hate to be pessimistic about it, because I do like my snow, but for the past several years the weatherpeople get all in a tizzy about a storm and then it does something weird like split itself so it misses the cities or tracks south and we get nothing. Here, in Minnesota of all places, there is now a measurable distinction between a "trace," a "dusting," a "coating," and "up to an inch" of snow. That's pathetic.
(Now for my geezer hat) I remember when there was no talk at all about snow from the weatherpeople, merely calling it "flurries," unless there was going to be at least four or five inches of the stuff. And that was back in Wisconsin, where they actually close school when there's 7 inches of snow. When we first moved up to Minnesota, we got a decent storm that amazed me, being from the south. It snowed for almost 3 days straight, there was like 15 inches of snow, and school did not get called off.
Well, here's hoping that we get enough snow for skiing (little boy has two races next week) and that my boss's plane manages to get back here from Mexico. Those aren't competing interests at all, in my mind.
