In Which We Sometimes Don’t Hit The “Sweet Spot”

We have family around from Far Away right now.  And by Far Away, I meant a different continent.  Berry Boy has been playing with his cousins and they are getting along like bandits.  It’s so fun.

So we had a family brunch this morning at 10:30am, during which I met my caloric needs for about 2 days in the space of an hour and a half.  If loving food is wrong, then lock me up and throw away the key baby.  I’m a lost cause.

Needless to say, a run was definitely going to have to be in the plans.  Unfortunately, consuming half a pound of bacon and sausage, a helping (or two) of bacon mushroom breakfast strata, fresh strawberries and melted dark chocolate, and (several) waffles with whipping cream and Saskatoon Berry sauce, along with coffee, and then having a two hour nap, and feeling like crap, does not lend itself to a good run.  I almost didn’t even make it out the door.

But I did, and it sucked just as bad as I thought it would.  So I cranked up my iPod and cranked out my miles.  And stopped once in a while to gasp and heave a little.

I finally hit my “groove” (or as close to a groove as I was going to get on this run) in the last mile and a half, which only means that it finally felt a degree less crappy than it had in the beginning.

So I was settling into my “groove” (such as it was) and getting ready to run the hill that comes before my driveway.  I had been doing quick shoulder checks to make sure that no cars were sneaking up behind me, and I did one again as I passed my neighbor’s house.

Where before there had been nothing there was now a large dog standing in the middle of the road, behind me, looking at me.  I gave an involuntary yell (“AH!!!”) and jumped about 2 feet off the road.  Since my iPod was cranked up (in order to drown out the crappy run feelings) I had not heard him come up or bark or anything.  He was just standing there, all German Shepherd-ish, and staring at me.  And all the things that I’ve heard to do with dogs began to flash through my mind, and I was not doing ANY of them.  You’re not supposed to run away (I’m pretty sure he’d been there for a minute already and I’d been “running away” that whole time), you’re not supposed to yell at them (I yelled), you’re not supposed to make eye contact (I was totally making eye contact)…

Thankfully, either his owners were on the yard, or he was just really nice, because he just watched me and then walked back onto his yard and out of sight.  I spent the rest of the run running fast (adrenalin) and looking over my shoulder (neck cramp).  Good times.

So no sweet spot for me today.  But it’s ok, I cheered myself up with a little Ben & Jerry’s.  Totally makes the run worth it.