Listening to Nature's Music AKA iPod Fail

Saturday we had wedding #2 in 8 days to attend. What is with everyone getting married lately? Geeeeeeeez. jk. :) After my run I got all gussied up to attend the wedding. The wedding was good, the reception was good, the red wine was cheap, thus giving me dirty teeth for the last couple hours of the reception, but oh well. All in all it was a good night. Of course I had to take an adorable picture with Mr. Handsome. :)

I drank very little, or technically just a little compared to everyone else, as I had planned on running a 6 miler the next day. Of course the weather was less than favorable at 6pm when my 2pm lunch had finally settled. Just as I was grabbing my running shoes, I hear the start of thunder. It's like the weather can sense me getting excited for my run! Grr. So in 50 degrees, steady 15 mph wind with 25 mph wind gusts, and 90% humidity (really? how is it that windy, yet still dripping wet humid?) I set off for my run. As soon as I got outside, I realized my iPod wasn't working. Now I should mention that I was Crabby McCrabberson yesterday. All day. For no apparent reason. The iPod malfunction set me off into a tizzy. Usually when this happens I can plug the stupid thing into my computer and it corrects itself. Nope, my cord was at my apartment, and I was at Taylor's. After spending a good 15 minutes trying to search the web for troubleshooting advice, and having none of it be successful, I set out for attempt #2 at my 6 mile run. I should note that Tay did offer to let me use his old school iPod, but listening to country for 50-ish minutes would cause me to drown myself in the river I was running next to. (No offense to you country fans, just not my cup of tea.)

I prepared myself to have the crappy run of all runs, yet I didn't. I haven't had an iPod-less run since I started running (longer than a mile or two) 3 years ago. It was pretty cool. I used to be a bird watcher as a kid (nerd alert, I know.... I lived in the country with no kids nearby so I learned to entertain myself.) so I started to see if I could match the birds with their calls. It was pretty entertaining and helped pass the time. Plus I realized that I had a soundtrack playing in my head anyway.

After my speedy (for me) 4 miler yesterday, I wanted to see if I could do a quick-ish 6 miler today. As some of you may have heard me complain about 6 milers in the past, I wanted this one to go down in the books with a :). And it did. I think. :) 6 miles in 53:45 for 8:58 pace.

1. 9:30

2. 9:03

3. 9:09 (um hello wind, you really suck)

4. 8:46 (but you're so delightful when you're at my back!)

5. 8:54

6. 8:23

I think I've learned that 9:30-9:45 is my very comfortable dare I say, jogging, pace. I can ran that pace for quite a long time without too much physical exertion. 8:30-9 mm definitely takes more concentration, but not too terribly much effort. If I focus on stretching out my stride just a little bit (instead of short, baby comfortable strides at my "comfortable" pace) I can usually hit those paces. Awesome.

When I was entering into mile 4-ish of the run, I had a random thought, that made me smile. When I was in junior high, I ran on the Varsity track team. Before you get too excited, I'm from a super small town, so it really wasn't that big of a deal, but it was cool to get to do sooooo many meets each spring. During junior high I competed in the 1600 m. run, 3200 m. relay, the 800 m relay or 400 m relay, and occasionally the 800 m run (or dash as they sometimes like to name it, HA!). There was one other girl in my class who was good at the mid-long distances who would compete against me (or with me in the 3200 m. relay). She was better than me. Oh sad, I know. Unfortunately for me, no one (including me) was aware that I was a sprinter, whoops! So I was stuck with the mid-long distances.

Even with the competitiveness (ok, it was probably just me being competitive with her) we were still best friends, and I think we pushed each other in practice, and also meets to perform our best.  Ok, enough with the background. The summer after our 7th grade year, we were both WAY excited about track and running, but I used to always make fun of her for "running for fun."  I specifically said, "Only crazy people run for fun."  As I was running in rotten weather, with no iPod and sweet tunes to enjoy I thought to myself, I'm officially insane.  And had to smile.  :)