A Sticker Dilemma

My streak of running without pausing to walk for a stretch was snapped yesterday.  There were a few extenuating circumstances, however.  Saturday mornings have been reserved for the week’s long haul, but the schedule was turned upside down because I do happen to have a life beyond running.  Friday was our wedding anniversary, so Kim and I enjoyed a wonderful evening of walking about downtown Wilmington and popping in here and there for appetizers.  This alone would have justified forfeiting the usual Saturday morning run, but there’s a lot going on at the moment.

Not only is Eric back for a visit from Phoenix, but Kim took off for a trip to Italy on Saturday – an unexpected opportunity that came her way at a terrific price.  Saturday morning I dropped Spencer off at the local PetSmart (where she volunteers at a pet adoption service for several hours every other week) and then took Kim to the airport.  Ate lunch while waiting for Spencer’s shift to end and returned home mid-afternoon.

It was blistering hot outside, but I decided it had cooled sufficiently to head out around 5PM.  The schedule had nine miles and I suited up with sixteen pounds of extra weight, praying that heat exhaustion wouldn’t do me in.  This dovetailed with Eric and Spencer’s evening agenda as they began preparing a sushi dinner when I took off!

Even towards evening, the run was sweltering, but I had selected a route offering some shade so it was bearable.  Around mile seven I made a turn back towards home and headed north on Carolina Beach Road, tired by this point and now completely exposed to the sun.  I needed to cross over this busy road and was disappointed for about a half mile as I kept looking over my shoulder to see whether there was any break in traffic.  Alas, each time I looked back and focused (there was a constant stream of sweat blurring my vision), the view always included a fresh gang of vehicles motoring along.

To complicate matters, there was a painful prick in my ankle which I knew was a sticker I had picked up.  Before we moved to Texas back in 2004 I was unfamiliar with “stickers,” though my cousin (who had lived there for ten years) had forewarned me of these painful bastards.  Stickers are weeds which seem to thrive in sandy soil and sport burrs that hurt like the dickens.  I was discouraged to realize this plague persists in North Carolina and is a constant nemesis for running – after most of my runs I have to endure the slow process of prying these little villains out of my shoelaces.  The sole amusement stickers provide is when I am running through weedy areas in Ohio, because I laugh at the instinctive need to scan for stickers before remembering they aren’t in Ohio.

Between the futility of identifying an opening in the traffic and the annoyance from the sticker, I decided to stop, remove the sticker and wait to make it over to the other side.  Good thing I did, because there was a red splotch on my sock where the sticker was lodged and it was decidedly easier facing the proper direction to evaluate traffic.  Both sides of the street were the “sunny” side, but I certainly didn’t click my heels and break into song!  What I did do was walk for a bit as the combination of heat and weight had made me a bit unsteady.  Fortunately I was only two miles from home and made it back in time for a tasty meal thanks to Spencer and Eric.

Do I look like a ‘Transformer’?  I can load the vest up to twenty pounds, the hand weights are three pounds apiece.

Wrapping up this challenging run yesterday evening didn’t set me up for a successful run this morning.  Since I wasn’t strapping on the vest, I had hoped an unencumbered feeling of ‘weightlessness’ would invigorate the pace, but I felt tired from the start.  Eric, Spencer and I had stayed up late playing cards and I didn’t set off until 8:15AM, so I had also forfeited cooler weather, probably another culprit for the sluggish feeling.  I still trotted twelve miles for a 45+ mile week…the final push continues.

Unsuccessfully attempting to pose like a Transformer, lol!