January 18th: *#$%ing Weatherman!

Usually when you see the sun, it's a sign of decent weather

I got an unexpected treat when I woke up this morning -- or at least I thought I did. It was 38 degrees, there was nothing coming out of the sky, and I could see some breaks in the clouds. So I told Lily we could go for a run, got us all set to go, and took off.

One of the reasons I wanted to run outside today was that I was participating in Meg's Miles, in memory of Meg Cross Menzies, who was struck and killed by a drunk driver this week while on her morning run. Runners across the nation kept Meg in their thoughts as they logged their miles this morning.

I kept thinking about how lucky I was to be running and not hurt or even killed. The whole point of running is to feel good and to try to live a long, healthy, happy, fulfilled life. What happened to Meg just doesn't seem right. But in the back of my head, I kept thinking about the rules of the road. So I decided that I wanted to stay in the neighborhood and that I would run against traffic wherever I could. But to get 7+ miles in, within the bounds of Cliffwood Beach, required a ton of zig-zagging, circling and doubling back.

I didn't think the water would give enough contrast for this shot.

As we got going, a little bit of sleet started coming down -- in my world, 20 percent chance of precipitation = 100 percent chance of precipitation. I should've remembered that. But it was relatively light, so I kept moving. My zig-zag route added an extra mile before I got to the waterfront, but that's when the snow started, and it was really coming down. I guess it would've been a lot more pleasant had I not been running straight into the wind for the whole waterfront walkway. (You remember, the one that's "closed.")

I really couldn't tell if the dog was trying to push the pace because she was just having fun and had a lot of energy to burn, or if she was in "let's get this over with" mode. But she made it the whole way, without complaint. We certainly could have gone a bit farther, but aside from boosting my miles, I do want to stick to the Higdon schedule, and 7.3 is already 1.3 more than he prescribes for today's run. Next week, I'll boost to 11 or 12.

Tomorrow will be cross-training day -- probably at WOW, where I'm much more comfortable doing strength training. Monday is rest, and then Tuesday is 4 or so.

Miles since starting the blog: 252.8