12athon: Month 2 (AA)

Ow.

Okay, so today it was supposed to be cold. Unlike practically everyone else on the planet, I was expecting it. So I looked around for indoor options. There are two that are available to me thanks to being a student (grad/professional), and I picked the more heated one (i.e., not the Recreational Sports Dome): the 200-meter indoor track in the University Field House. Which is open 12n-10p on Sundays, yay!

Except I was running late--things to do afterward--so I didn't take any pictures. But if you really want to know what it looks like, there's a picture in the header of the University Field House link above. Otherwise, I can point you to this picture:



(which I borrowed from this guy, who is 200% more badass than I could ever be. Go give him hits on his blog to make up for me borrowing the picture. It's not the same track, I don't think, but the one at the U looks rather similar, in that 'red indoor track' sort of way.)

ANYWAY. I was running late. Sort of. Not at the beginning. The sign said that 6.9 laps on the outside equaled one mile, so I did some fast-and-dirty math (yes, math can be fast and dirty) and came up with 83 laps. Which, I suppose, is better than the 96 I was thinking I had to do. (I would have definitely cried ninety-six tears.) So I divided that into 21, 21, 21, and 20 laps. In each break, I drank water and ate some of the Cherry Blossom Honey Stinger organic chew things I happened to have (thanks, K!). Surprisingly tasty, considering that I'm iffy on cherry-flavored things.

Four hundred and ninety-eight million laps later (about 70 laps, honestly), my feet felt like lead--sooooo difficult to lift 'em. So, inspired by the two honest-to-crap barefoot runners I saw earlier and the two people in VFFs, I said eff it and kicked my shoes off and ran the rest barefoot. It didn't hurt less, but it hurt differently. I did end up with a blister on one toe but I'm unclear as to whether it happened before, while my feet were swelling in the shoes, or while I was barefoot.

Honestly, that's the only interesting thing that happened during the entire run. 200-meter tracks are tiny. I forgot my headphones, so no music--I mostly listened to people playing soccer on the other side of the curtain.

So, numbers (as someone who is not Steve Chiotakis says now):

Distance: 12.03 mi
Time: 2.35 (so no, I didn't knock 15 minutes off my time, but 10 was good!)
Laps: 83
Laps barefoot: 13
Other women on the track: 1
Other people on the track: 9
People wearing minimalist shoes/no shoes: 5 (not counting me)
People who pretty much tried to knock me over every time they passed me: 1 (wtf, guy)
Water bottles (20 oz) consumed: 3
Challenges done this month: just 1--Sisyphus

Oh, and if anyone else is from Minnesota and reading this, the DSW in Maple Grove has a pretty good selection of Merrell True Gloves (men's) for $80 (instead of $110). *shrugs*

February 12athon: It's Too Freaking Cold (RWB)

This is my rest week before my first half marathon and I'm out of town and I have a performance later today, so I decided it was a good month to do the Rosie Ruiz challenge. I checked the weather forecast for the weekend before packing to leave on Wednesday - sunny with highs of 55-60 every day and lows of about 40. I brought a long-sleeve shirt (an REI Lightweight Polartec top, which is actually pretty awesome, if you were wondering) and some running capri pants, but that sounded warm enough not to bother with gloves and a knit hat if I did all my running in the afternoons. I remembered after I was in the car that I'd have to do the 12athon run in the morning because of the ballet, but I figured I could always go buy a pair of cheap gloves at Target.

The end of the closest bus route to my friend K.'s house where I'm staying is at a mall, so I figured that would be a good place to leave my car while I ran and hitched a ride on a bus. Only the first mile and a half of the bus route is walkable and I didn't want to wait for a bus in both directions, so I was going to walk that far, take the bus back to where I started, and then run the remaining 9 miles in the other direction since they actually have sidewalks there.

Then I checked the weather forecast again last night. Somewhere around 20 degrees with a wind chill making it feel about 10 degrees colder. There aren't a huge number of extremely compelling reasons to live in the South, but not having to deal with temperatures that cold is on the list. I suppose if I was at home I could have thrown on three pairs of pants, a couple of shirts, a hoodie, a fleece, a hat, a scarf, and (let's face it - I'm a bit of a wimp) two pairs of gloves, but I didn't really want to buy quite *that* much stuff at Target.

I thought it would be funny to wear this shirt
as one of my layers since it was so cold. Well,
okay, and it was the only t-shirt I had with me.

Clearly my original plan did not involve nearly enough time inside a nice, toasty bus. I also decided that maybe the subway was a better way to go than the bus - the bus I was planning to use only runs every 30 minutes on Sundays, there's a crappy-but-better-than-nothing heater in the train stations, and I could just walk to the other side of the platform instead of paying for the bus twice. The Dunwoody station is at Perimeter Mall and it's a mile if you park at the far corner of the mall parking lot and then run along the main road to the station. Perfect.

Fare gates. I know, super exciting.
I was going to take a picture while running around
the mall to the station, but a) you guys have all
seen a mall before and b) I didn't get around to
buying gloves so I didn't want to take my hands out
of my pockets.

One time when I was waiting at a MARTA station,
a community college photography class was there
taking pictures. At least none of them was the
only weirdo standing around snapping pictures
of a subway train.

Obviously this post needed at least one blurry
photo taken through the window. At least it was warm.

It's just over 5 miles to the Buckhead station, so I got off there. I had 15 minutes until the train going in the other direction was supposed to come, so I walked up and down the platform trying to stay warm. The station was basically empty, so it was easier to take pictures without getting funny looks from fellow travelers.

I was hoping maybe there would be a nice panoramic
view of the city or something, but an exit sign for
the freeway was about it.

I'm pretty sure this particular piece of subway wall art is made from scraps of flooring material which are painted bright colors.

Then I rode back to the mall and ran back to my car. The temperature had gotten all the way up to 23, but I still didn't want to take my hands out of my pockets to take a picture of a mall. Total time: 50 minutes for 12 miles! Man, I'm fast.

Why I Haven't Been Running Much

Exhibit A: Where I Live

Exhibit B: Where RWB Lives

Even my nice Smartwool balaclava isn't enough to deal with a day like today, where the high was 1. Degree. F.

Also, I hate her.