something to write home about

this morning i awoke to the sound of, you guessed it, olie and his whining. i scanned the floor for my alarm clock but it wasn't where i usually keep it. i pulled myself up as far as i could in my state of confusion and located it on the floor on the far side of my night stand. as i strained to read it's display through the blurriness of just waking up it read: BOS. bos? what kind of time is bos? i stared at it a bit longer thinking the letters would magically turn into numbers but they didn't. instead i came out of my delirium and realized the clock was sitting upside down. i remembered grabbing it off of the night stand after i had accidently fallen asleep at 10 pm, set it for 5:30 am, then carelessly tossed it in the general direction of where it usually sits. it all made sense. it was 5:08 and that also made sense since olie was crying. like clockwork, if he's not in bed with us, he bitches at 5 am. you'd think we owned a rooster.

i got up to get the little cock (pun intended) out of his cage and put him back in bed with us. we all dozed off for about 20 minutes until the delightful sound of the alarm clock was disintegrating my ears. i thought about moving it ahead to 6 am so i could get some more z's, but remembered how excited i was last night for this morning's run. plus, i didn't want to hear the damn thing go off again. i told aj it was time to run, flipped on the lights and left the room. as i was getting dressed aj took the little cry baby outside and came back in with bad news. it was cold out. aj wasn't so pumped to run yet another cold and windy morning, but he continued along with our routine as usual. i grabbed a scarf and wrapped it around my head as if it were snowing klondike bars outside. i knew i'd warm up early in the run, but i also knew i complain a lot (inside my head) if i didn't have extra protection against the cold and wind.

we got outside a little before 6 am and i was more than pumped. keep in mind, i hadn't run since the hurricane of '08 hit beavercreek, ohio two days prior. in that storm i had run over 10 consecutive minutes before i got washed away with the flood and i was determined to do the same today. now that i run the same route each day i know (within feet) where certain minute marks are. (ie. 5 minute mark, 10 minute mark.) before i knew it i was blazing by 5 minutes. then i hit 10 minutes. i couldn't believe how easy it came. i decided i could start walking once the man in my ipod told me i had reached a mile, so i kept going. still in running-mode i approached a cal de sac. not the cute little five house wooded cal de sac that i like, that one is in my five minute mark. no, this was the big daddy hill cal de sac. the one that i had just mastered. i knew that i'd reach my one mile on this cal de sac so i just kept going. when the man in my ipod gave me the go i could walk again and the cal de sac wouldn't be so bad. as i reached the top of the cal de sac the man in my ipod still hadn't alerted me of my first mile. had i not gone as far as i had thought? did i make the man in my ipod mad and now he's not talking to me? i felt like i had almost ran another five minutes since the last time he had spoken to me. it was with that thought that i remembered he only tells me how i'm doing at five minute intervals. "fifteen-minutes completed," he told me. wow. i couldn't believe i had not walked a step of it yet.

i usually begin walking when i feel as though i'm not getting enough oxygen into my lungs. going at a slower pace for about a minute helps me catch my breath and then i can continue on my merry way. well, i had ran through all of that and found myself breathing very steadily and deeply. i realized it was never anything i needed to walk over, it was just something i needed to push through.

"halfway through; only 17.5 minutes remaining." all this time and i still was running. well, if you want to call it that. i was definitely going through the motions, but probably would have gotten run over if the mall walkers accidently wondered out of the mall and onto this road. that may sound far fetched, but i could see the mall from where i was. good thing they don't open the doors until i'm long gone and at work. blogging.

with my shins starting to hurt at this point i decided i should start walking. but when? i am way anal about things and like to use round numbers, make things even and always follow some type of order. (and no, i do not have ocd.) i chose to start walking once i had made one entire lap around the pseudo track i made out of my neighborhood. when i reached my landmark i hit the center button on my ipod to see how i had done so far. believe it or not i had ran 1.8 miles at an average of 11'2"/mile. amazing. i never would have guessed i'd be doing so well only a week and a half into our training. (especially considering my track record with running. yikes.)

as i took my first walking step i realized my shins were really bothering me. i tried altering my form a bit to see if i could get little stretches in without stopping. i succeeded with this a little and then tried running more. no luck. still hurt! i walked a little further, and from a distance i set a landmark where i'd start running again. as i approached the landmark (aka some family's driveway) i started running again, but this time with a little less discomfort. i realized the pain had faded enough with my brief walk that i could run the rest of it. and i did.

while the man in my ipod started counting down the minutes i had left, i rerouted myself to end my run closer to my apartment. with only two minutes remaining i ran on a small stretch of sidewalk that takes you away from my apartment, out to a main road with the intention of turning back at the one minute mark. when alerted, i turned around and couldn't believe i had almost ran for 35 consecutive minutes. the joy must have really thrown me off because i didn't see the two inch bump in the sidewalk ahead. you see, the entrance to our complex is a very cute, winding street that passes a few mallard-filled ponds and is lined with trees.. and, as trees grow, their roots often times push sidewalks up, right in front of unsuspecting runners who are off in their own dreamworld. all of a sudden i kicked what felt like the berlin wall (pre david hasselhoff performance) and everything went into slow-motion.

the music dancing from my ipod faded out into the distance, my hands swung out in front of me preparing for impact and time stood still. realizing what happening, my left foot came to the rescue, basically dislocating itself like a snake's jaw, and flew way out in front of my plummeting body. i caught myself! my music kicked back in, i brought my arms back down and time found it's rhythm. "congratulations," said the man in my ipod. was he mocking my sloppy near-fatal fall? he continued on to tell me i had completed my run, but i think he was laughing at me on the inside.

for my next run i may switch it over so there is a girl inside my ipod. i think she'd be more understanding with a mini crisis like that.