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Last week was better.

Well at least running wise. Not gonna lie, life has me feeling a little fried.

I got in an interesting 5K, like I mentioned last week. And everyone at work was intrigued by the white turkey I saw. Even Google says they are rare. Who knew?

Friday was the end to a long, long week. I briefly thought about running but who was I kidding? Then there was Saturday. I wanted to sleep in but I couldn’t. I had a prior commitment working the registration table for a fundraiser for a local charity through work. I should have run in the afternoon but instead I took a 2 hour nap. And I am not sad. I needed it.

Sunday started with drama. The cat was sick so it meant a trip to the emergency vet. People still aren’t allowed into the vet so after they took Heli in, it meant chilling in the car for a while. Coincidently while a helicopter circled the area. I tried not to wonder why they were circling. Thankfully, Heli was ok just extremely constipated. Poor dude.

I could have used the rough morning to pass on running and have in the past but chose not to. My non-plan plan called for 6 in theory miles. Which would also be the longest run since the Santa Rosa Half. So I changed and headed out to see how things went. I tried to play it smart though. I knew I was way undertrained and also figured that my next half would involve a lot of walking. So I power walked the first 3 miles and ran/walked the next 3. Other than a shoe lace issues 2 miles in, I felt surprisingly ok. I fueled at the half way point, still working on that. But I felt good. I even rounded it out to be a 10k.

A 9 mile week sounds like nothing but considering it’s about half of what I ran in the entire month of September, I’ll take it. Now if the daily headaches would go away, that would be great.

Turkeys and Bear

This was gonna be the week, I felt it. This was the week I was going to get up an run in the morning before work. This was it.

Then Monday came. I’m not stupid, I knew I wasn’t starting this out on a Monday. I did set an alarm for the earlier time though and at least get up and check out the window to see the what the morning looked like. Then I dozed for another hour-ish. No the problem popped up on Monday’s lunch.

A bear!

Rumors of a bear roaming my side of town popped up on social media. Then the security videos start popping up. Nope, yeah that’s a bear. And way too damn close to my house. With my weird animal luck, even my coworkers were cracking jokes that I’d be calling in from the hospital.

Granted most of animal encounters are funny- mini horse, goats, feisty possum, runaway chickens, attack peacocks but there are still scars on my ass from the the worst of my dog encounters. So yeah, mornings were sounding less like a good thing. Ha!

It was a Thursday afternoon run this week where I again showed my proclivity for running into animals where they maybe shouldn’t be. I was heading up the concrete path and could see something moving farther up the path and it wasn’t human. Could it be peacocks again? No, didn’t look right. So I slowed and got closer. Wait, are those turkeys? Can turkeys be white?? Also they looked small. But smart. They ran farther up the path from me, snuck into the bushes on my left and doubled back behind me. Then popped out of the bushes behind and bolted down the path. What the hell?

A mile later, things were still weird. There’s a dog behind a stonewall but he and I have been chill for years. However he was going crazy and pogo sticking up and down so I could see his head just popping over the wall. Huh? Then I heard a little jingling. Look up the path and there is a small chihuahua running my way. It passed me and I could a pink bling-ed up collar and then it kept running. What? I turned around and tried to catch it but it dropped me like a track start and I couldn’t find it again. Grrr.

Oh but pogo dog and I shared a look- like “where the hell did that come from?”.

So yep, pass on the morning runs this week.

September- Catchup Style

And I disappeared again.

I was feeling ok post Santa Rosa and looking forward to running but I also knew I pushed it more than normal so I chose to the take the week after the race off. I headed out for a few miles on Labor Day which were slow and already hot but that was ok; I was stilling feeling the running buzz.

Then, I started to go downhill. A migraine was rolling in on Wednesday evening. I tried fighting it off on Thursday but lost the battle. I ended up spending all of Friday in bed, on Saturday I moved to the chair. I managed to go out on Sunday to get the essentials for the week but then it was home for a 3 hour nap on the floor. You know how you say you just want a day or 2 to lounge away and watch stupid TV? It’s not as cool as it sounds. I did watch a ridiculous amount of stupid movies though. So many. So very many. And the cat never left me.

A new week has begun, well is almost over, oops. I still haven’t run but I think I am on the upswing. Fingers crossed.

And I’ve cross trained!!! 3 times! I figured I wasn’t well enough to run yet but I could try at least some sort of exercise. Oh my god, squats, it hurt to walk for 2 days. Also, oddly my cat decides she has to be near me when I am swinging around weights. Why?

Then I tried to break my elbow on my front gate so that was fun. Still hurts. Then the next morning, I stumbled on the rocks and fell off the curb trying to open the gate. Seriously, just call me Calamity.

Also, my Timehop has reminded me that I apparently have a similar migraine every September. So what is it about September???

Countdown

Disclaimer: I received an entry into the Santa Rosa Half Marathon to review as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to review find and write race reviews!

I am at the point of fitness where sometimes a rest day is smarter than pushing it before a race. But that also makes it way too easy to remain a Slacker.

Last week wasn’t horrible and I did get out for 2 days of runs. They weren’t bad either. Both were short but both were decent. Slower than crap but decent. The only downside was the humidity during Saturday’s run. What was that all about??? We don’t do humidity here! 100 degrees, sure but humidity, no. Yuck.

Then I rationalized that a long run on Sunday wouldn’t help me for the race but could possibly hurt it. I was feeling an odd ache in my left leg and was freaky tired. Nap time!

I still had a shoe dilemma though. The farther I had run in the Torin’s was 6 ish miles and that makes me nervous for Santa Rosa. So I figured I would try a short in the Wave Riders even though Idaho made me want to burn them. Nope, no change. In fact, I took my shoes off and finished my run barefoot. Well, let’s be real- I was walking. Only crazy people run barefoot on concrete. Or people with stronger feet than me.

Then the week ran away from me and now Santa Rosa race weekend is here. What????

Don’t get me wrong, I am looking forward to it but I have some concerns. First is obviously my fitness level, well lack there of. Next is smoke. It’s hard to find somewhere in Ca that isn’t affected by smoke at the moment. Worse is the fires causing the smoke.

So, Santa Rosa, here I come!

Ghosted-Rambling Style

Oops…. Didn’t mean to stay away so long but then life just kept on rolling. I wrote a post in my head almost every day but never followed through on the typing part. Slacker.

So let’s catch up, rambling style.

Went on the grossest run of my life a couple of Saturday’s ago. Smoke and humidity in the air? Levels of hell. I was walking by the end and wheezing. Felt so nasty from the sticky humidity it’s the first time I’ve ever hosed myself off post run. 🤣

Went for a trail run and lost my pops. In the first quarter mile. How the what?? Turns out he took a different junction and between my waiting to see if he caught up (like we usually do) and running out and back the junctions meant he beat me to the top of mountain! I passed 2 hikers and asked if they had seen a man in a bucket hat with hiking poles- “oh, yeah, he’s way up the trail!”. I said what the hell out loud and they laughed as I starting booking it up the hillside.

My GI disorder decided it had been too behaved in the last few months and flared. Big time. I ended up actually missing most of a day of work and trying to sleep it better. Grrr. It’s leveled a bit but not much. This took me out of even thinking about running for most of a week.

Which, timing wise wasn’t horrible as we hit a week of 110 degree temps with wildfire smoke thrown in. Which might have added to a ridiculous migraine that rolled in too.

Said goodbye to my boss at work. Which even though I’ve known it was coming since June, it still feels like a blindside. I wish him all the best, it’s just odd. New boss is good too but it’s still odd.

I went to a concert! One of my top 3 favorite bands is on tour and they came to my town!! What are the odds? I never thought one of my bands would come to town, both due to the nature of the bands and the size of the town. Not to frown on my town though, I’ve learned that we have a couple of great concert venues. Which is why I got to see Rise Against at our outdoor amphitheater! And it was amazing. Totally worth the late night with work the next day. Although wearing heals to work the next day was a very bad idea, ha!

Oh and I have a half marathon in 10 days. Oops.