Running or oh my aching legs

So I haven't been out on the road as much as I should be this training go-round but I am actually exercising so I think I get a partial pass on this, right? I have been playing marathon tennis matches, sweating through spin classes, and am even contemplating the comic relief of joining the adult jazz class at R.'s dance studio just as long as they don't think there's a snowball's chance in hell that these old hips will ever be capable of doing the splits. But I am running some (and even some that I haven't mentioned on here). Yesterday and today I actually got to do my favorite kind of running: with a friend. Weird how I'm really an introvert but I like to have someone huffing and puffing alongside me so I can run my mouth for the bulk of the time. Just shows how out of character the whole running thing is for me!

So K. is also training for a half marathon although hers is in December so slightly before mine. And she's running quite a bit farther than my pitiful mile and a half. Of course, if she was going to go almost 4 miles, I had to also. This is why I need the distraction of running with another person. When I start whining to myself, I let myself stop. When I want to whine in company, I tamp it down thanks to the fear of being told at the end of the run: "You're a colossally whiny pain in the ass and I never want to run with you ever again." Now this doesn't mean that my running partners over time don't think "Shut the eff up and just run woman!" But I think I'd prefer to be ditched because I chat pleasantly rather than because I am a big fat whiny baby. With luck K. won't tire of my diarrhea of the mouth any time soon though!

While yesterday was longer than I have been going, it wasn't really too bad, highlighting the fact that I clearly mentally sabotage myself right, left, and center on most of my solitary runs. So when we decided to do the same thing today, I was feeling pretty confident. Big mistake! Day two of running more than twice the distance your body has been doing hurts a heck of a lot more than day one. Getting to the turn-around point was brutally long. If I didn't know better, I'd say they added to the path overnight so it was farther than yesterday. Could happen, right?

As long as those almost four miles felt today, the worst part of the run was the chafing. Apparently an additional twenty pounds means that things that didn't need to be Body Glided up for such a (realtively) short run before sure do now. My inner thighs are on fire. And boy howdy did my shower once I got home hurt like a son of a gun. I'm now walking like I just got off a horse. That should bode well for that dance class tonight. Can you use bowlegged and graceful in the same sentence or is that too much of a stretch? OK, you probably can't use my name and graceful in the same sentence without the qualifier of "not" without stretching the bounds of credulity so I'm guessing not. This nasty rub rash reminds me of a girl I knew in high school who told me once that if you were a virgin, your legs touched at the top of your thighs but if you weren't, they didn't touch. Did I mention that I was rather naively gullible back then? Three children later I think I've proved her wrong. Or maybe that only counts for people at healthy weights and there's hope that someday my thighs won't touch. I'm going to close my eyes and wish for that day to come very very hard right now.....

::blink blink::

::blink blink::

::blink blink::

Nope. Anne, wherever you are, sadly I think you got it wrong.

After our run, K. and I went to the Trader Joe's conveniently located directly across from the lovely Greenway we've been running. Oh how I love you Trader Joe's. But I have to say I'd love you more if you gave a small corner of your refrigerated space over to water. You could eliminate some of the cheeses, in particular the lovely ones that most mock my efforts at eating reasonably (ie not the entire block all at once). Anyway, we can't have been the only sweaty, smelly people who wandered in from the Greenway desperate for cold hydration. Room temp bottles just don't cut it when your body temperature is roughly the same as the inner core of the sun. On the plus side, I did decide to do my lunch time shopping while I was there and apparently I should shop for food immediately following a run more often because I made far healthier choices than I normally would. Hey, maybe I'll reach that magic thigh not touching place sooner than I think! I came away with a salad with Italian beans, edemame beans, grapes and electrolyte added water. I can feel the health oozing out of me right now. Oh wait, that's just the water running through me. And yes, I am well aware that I probably bought into silly marketing with the electrolyte added water (there was no flavoring or sugar or anything like that) but maybe it's real and I wouldn't want to miss out on all the benefits if so, right? I mean, I haven't forwarded any chain e-mails lately so I can't afford to press my luck too much.

For those of you who know my usual barf-filled travelogues, you'll be pleased to know that vomit seems to stalk me in all areas of my life, even running (and no, it wasn't me puking although there were moments where I felt like I might). The puppy had to go to the vet for her spay appointment today. As she gets motion sick if she's in the car for more than 10 minutes, she threw-up all over on our way to the vet's. Two saving graces: one, I was smart enough to put a towel down for this eventuality and two, she hadn't had food or water since the night before so there wasn't a lot to upchuck. However, being lazy, I decided to leave the towel in the car for her return trip (certainly she'd have another episode after anesthesia, right?). This is a terrible plan when you then park your car in the sun while you run for 40+ minutes. OK, this is probably *always* a terrible plan but it is even worse in the aforementioned situation. My van now smells positively vomitrocious and I suggest that all of you start buying stock in Febreeze given my stupidity quotient! I got to drive home with doggie stomach acid fumes, rank dance shoes (which seem to have found a permanent home in my car), and my own sweaty stench all wafting at me. Not much of an olfactory reward for being so good on the exercise front but not nearly as fattening as a cookie scent would have been, I guess.

Provided that my legs don't fall off in the intervening interval, I plan to go shake my thang tonight at that dance class. Tomorrow is spin class and then tennis. Thursday is a tennis match. And Friday will be either a tennis match or a clinic, one of the two. So it looks like it may be Saturday before I see the road again. I'm just hoping the chafing is healed if the thighs are still touching by then (hope springs eternal).