socially awkward – Slacker Runner

I’m socially awkward.

I wasn’t as a child. I was obnoxious, outgoing and a bit of a daredevil. I don’t know what happened to me. 😛

Crowds make me uncomfortable- sometimes running in public still freaks me out. I’ve mostly gotten over it in home town. Granted the bridge still stresses me out. For crying out loud, I still sprint across the damn thing. Last weeks long run saw the bridge mile clocking in at 9:14. Which doesn’t sound that speedy until you take into account my stupid shins and the fact that I walked part of that mile too.

Running in work town? Oh hell no. I do it very rarely. What if people see me? I don’t want customers to see me in a sweaty mess. And shorts? Forget it. If I run in work town, I wear capris, no matter what time of year. Throw in the fact that I only have only the one 4 mile route and I don’t run there very often. Too uncomfortable.

The week has been running around 105ish in hometown. Mid 70’s at 7 am. Yay. 😭😭 I ran in work town on Monday- tried to be invisible. Wednesday was my half day and I wanted to run but 100+ temps? Not so much. Whereas work town was a lovely 72. Decisions, decisions.

I stepped outside my comfort zone. I ran in work town. On a new path. In shorts. In the middle of the day. There were people around. It’s summer in a beach town- what was I thinking?

It freakin’ rocked.

Don’t get me wrong- those 4 miles kicked my ass. First I was cold then I was hot. The path I thought I was on turned out to be not what I thought. My shorts rode up every 5 steps and I spent most of the run trying to discreetly dig them out of my crotch and yanking them down. Cover those legs! My legs hurt, my shins ached. I was sinking in the sand. The pavement seemed too hard. I lost the cover to my new handheld Orange Mud and didn’t even notice for 1/2 a mile. How? I was breathing like I was sprinting but I so wasn’t. I walked more than I would have liked. People saw me.

But —

I ran through a tunnel of Cypress trees–

Found three stacks–