M'aidez?
I think I've come across a foolproof way to increase my running pace. Those of you who have the self-motivation to get out the door with your sneakers but lack the inspiration to pick up the pace and actually get a workout, but aren't brave enough to tie a steak to your butt and be chased by dogs, heed my words: get caught in hailstorms.
I have inadvertently done this two days in a row now. It's fairly simple, really. Head out when the sky is charcoal and lowering. You may even seen sheets of rain falling far in the distance. No worries. Rain there does not mean rain here. (Can you tell I've lived at least a year in Colorado Springs? Rather like the soldiers at Balad who would simply ignore the Alarm Reds and exploding shells around them while the rest of us skurried for cover, a person who has acclimated to Colorado Springs weather will not concern herself with nasty clouds or rain falling anywhere in the city. The same logic applies.)
Usedtobe--I think that ought to be a single word, like "Albeit" or "nevertheless"--Colorado Springs would see rain at the same time every afternoon, around 3:30pm, throughout the summer. I don't remember spring weather, but I suspect I'd have remembered steady afternoon sleet and hail. As it is, I remember nothing of the sort. It's moving in earlier these days. Must have something to do with...erm...the greenhouse effect, El Nino, global tilt or...something.
So yesterday, I left the office around 2:15, found a spot to park near the fieldhouse, and went for my afternoon "overlook" run. "Running the overlook" is a cadet physical education requirement. Ex-cadets who are now officers associate it with sadomasochism. First, you must understand that there is absolutely no area at the Academy to run that is flat, unless it's an indoor track (blech). Second, how boring to run in circles or, for that matter, without hills. When I learned of the much-reviled "overlook" run, I knew I simply must do it.
A propos of nothing, one of my cats has a strange habit of lying in my lap with her tail wrapped snugly around my arm, not unlike an opossum tail clinging to a tree limb, which she's doing now. Weird.
I struck out with an ex-cadet I work with to run the overlook, and we went the wrong way. That is, there is an easy way, relatively speaking, and we didn't take it. (If you want the easy way, just follow the cadets.) Here's the route:
1. Level ground/slight downhill grade for 1/2 mile.
2. Sharp uphill grade (7-8%) for 1/4 mile.
3. Downhill grade (from 1 to 4%) for 1.2 miles
4. Medium uphill grade (4%) for 1/2 mile.
5. Level ground/slight uphill grade for 1/4 mile.
I'm a bit off on the mileage, as the route we normally run is only 3.2 miles (so I'm told). We run it, though, from 5 to 1. It's a loop, so it starts and stops at the same altitude, but doing all the hillage in one bang is immeasurably harder.
So anyway. I ran it alone yesterday, as my running buddy was giving a commander's course or somesuch all day. When I first started, I ran through a two-minute rainshower, which is no big deal. It wasn't hot, but not so cold that it was markedly uncomfortable, either. (NOTE: Discomfort, to a distance runner, is more relative than it is to non-distance runners. Whatever that means.) I started the hill and actually got a bit of sunlight, I think. It was cool, breezy...nice. As I topped the hill and started down, enfused with the rush of adrenaline, the sleet/hail hit. It wasn't big enough to do real damage to me, which is a good thing, because there was no place to hide except perhaps in a culvert somewhere. That lasted for about half a mile before it let up. I returned to my truck in a steady rain with a steady cool breeze, jumped in, and drove home. I was chilled when I got home, so I drew a hot bath, which fixes everything that could possibly ail a person.
Today, I ran five miles, around noon, at home. It was cool and breezy when I struck out, and yes, there were thunderclouds over the mountains. But they were very far away, right? No worries. Luckily (again), my knees were warmed up when the sleet/hail struck. Again, it wasn't large enough to knock me unconscious, but it was cold and it stung. I was still coming down when I slipped into my garage. I noticed yet again how I tap unknown reserves of energy when I'm pelted.
...
What was I doing at home, you ask? Ah. Well. You know the semester ended, no doubt. That was last week. I still have much to do and deadlines still loom, but work hours for us generally become more flexible in the summertime. And in theory, I can sit there all day if I like reading a book in my office, and no one thinks I'm goofing off. Thus, I'd planned to use many of my otherwise unplanned summer duty days to do just that.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way--at least for me. I have projects demanding my attention and when I force myself to take a break, I simply can't seem to concentrate enough to read. I may have to take to slipping off to the library next door or something.
So yesterday, I rolled out at the leisurely hour of 7:30am, then walked onto the back porch where the sun was warm and inviting, and jumped rope a bit. (This is a new thing I'm incorporating into my routine, through an act of sheer willpower. I was never good at it as a child, but it's very healthy, I'm told. I begin an exercise session with a specific plan of attack, but I invariably end up quitting when I can't take anymore whippings for the day. I have a leather boxer's rope. It smarts when you miss.) I came in from time to time to copy another audiobook CD to MP3 so I can listen to it when I run. I balanced my checkbook. Around 9am, it occurred to me that I still wasn't in the mood to take a shower, get into uniform, and go to work, but I did anyway.
Like I said, we have flexible summer hours, so nobody bats an eye when I walk in at 10:15am, but it just isn't me. I'm a morning person. If I lack motivation in the morning, it's time for a vacation.
So I took the rest of the week off.
...
I'm having a great time catching up on my reading. I have an unimaginable pile of books I've amassed over the years, in much the same way that "normal" women build huge scrap-cookbooks from recipes collected from Good Housekeeping, or--for that matter--collect shoes, purses, or jewelry and watches. I think it's the same sort of affliction.
I've been reading Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World, a recent hardcover book I picked up for $5 at our library booksale. While it's well-written and interesting, it's somewhat dense. I needed something lighter, so I picked up Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris. I've been a Sedaris fan since college, and picked up this book around the beginning of my master's program, I think. Sedaris writes some of the most original and off-beat yet insightful humor I've read in a very long time. Much of it is about his family, who are apparently all odd birds. He manages to laugh at them and the world without a hint of bitterness.
In the last half of this particular book, he describes his efforts to learn French in France as an adult. This bit is filled with amusing tidbits. I rather identify with his struggle with French noun genders: "I spent months searching for some secret code before I realized that common sense has nothing to do with it. ... Nothing in France is free from sexual assignment. ...I wonder whose job it was to assign these sexes in the first place. Did he do his work right there in the sanitarium, or did they rent him a little office where he could get away from all the noise?"
There's a fairly longer selection I considered sharing about the culturally-mixed beginner French class attempts to explain--in French, of course--to a Moroccan what Easter is, but I'm afraid it's over the line for fair use. Pity. Made me laugh out loud all alone in my living room.
Copyrighted 2000. On the shelves of your local library, no doubt, awaiting your amused appreciation.
Now I'm moving on to Mil Millington's first novel, Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About. Years ago, a friend of mine addicted me to Mil's web page of the same name. The book is loosely based upon Mil's life experiences, I'm led to believe.
I haven't laid reading plans from there. Perhaps a Bill Bryson book, an American with a British sense of humor who writes, of all things, travel books. He infuses his books with the tourist's sense of wonder while providing a diary, of sorts, of his sojourn there, including misguided attempts to use the local language and his occasional consumption of a few too many beers in various locales in Europe. He's branching out, though. He also wrote The Mother Tongue, a book I enjoyed tremendously because it's about etymology, and A Short History On Just About Everything.
...
I've thought I may clean out the garage in the next day or two, but I hesitate to place too much responsibility upon my vacationing shoulders. I did dismantle two homemade doghouses in the corner of the yard Sunday afternoon. They were built with several layers, intended to keep dogs dry and warm in Colorado blizzards, apparently. That project sucked up 4 hours of my day, but it was beautiful, so I didn't mind so much. And I still need to regrout the master bath, too.
The odd thing is, any of these projects would be fun if it were the only thing I had to do. As it is, the preponderance of duties awaiting my attention is simply draining to the psyche.
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