This morning I was lucky to be part of an amazing runDisney event–the Tinker Bell Half Meetup. Fifty of us ran through Disneyland and California Adventure at 6 am. I’ll do a full recap later but just wanted to squeal for a moment.
I never, ever reach any sort of runner’s high or clearing of the head while I run. Instead, my head is full of conversations with itself since there are no other distractions. On my last long run I mulled over these amazing topics and many, many more. It’s very circular and all strangely related. I do run with music when I run by myself and have my interval timer in my headphone, but I very rarely ever hear the music.
For anyone still hanging around from my website or RunKeeper from the 2011 season (I accidentally erased all the blog posts) will remember my fall count and safety record posts. “No fall in five days” was a common one.
I don’t want to jinx myself, but I only fell once in all of 2012! And it was a fall on a trail when I was messing with my headphones and hit a rock just right. It was a normal fall, not a fly like Superman, skidding and bumping down the sidewalk/street kind of fall. I twisted my ankle and it was fine after a couple days of rest. The bruise on thigh, hip and butt hung around for a couple weeks, but it wasn’t horrible. There was no blood.
Considering I fell at least a dozen times in the 2011 Vegas season, that’s an amazing feat. I had knee braces, slings, many many days of low impact exercise, and a whole lot of cuts and bruises. It was a rare run when I didn’t come home bleeding.
Yeah, I feel awesome.
I’m not one for making lists, especially bucket lists, which is a term I wish would disappear (I certainly don’t understand making a 2013 bucket list. It’s supposed to be things you want to do before you die. Not in the next year. Unachievable, amazing things you probably will never get the chance to do I digress.) I don’t really make resolutions either. If I want to do something, I just make it happen somehow. This year, I have a goal, a quest for 2013. And it doesn’t even end in 2013.
I am not training very well or very hard for the Tinkerbell Half. Life has gotten in the way. I am getting a few miles in when I can and when it’s not ice raining. I know I should suck it up and run in the rain, as I live in Seattle, but it’s 36 degrees. But a couple days ago, I strapped on my headphones and blasted the running mix (I’ve been slowly rebuilding it since my iPhone 5 ate it) and went a running.
My goal for the end of this season, my off season, and next season is to keep running up the hills in my neighborhood. I am the master of avoiding hills, because in Ballard if you make the right turns you could always be running up hill both directions. Instead of winding around the hills, I am running straight through them, right on up the hills. There is only one that has me beat and I’m making it 3/4 of the or more up before I have to stop. I will make it to the top.
With that aside, I went running. It was cold. It was wet. It was windy. It was beautiful out still. And as I pounded the wet concrete, I found myself smiling. Yes, smiling.
Don’t tell anyone. I think I might hate running slightly less than I used to.
This update is long overdue. I’ll start the story quick. I ran the Disney Dine & Wine Half with the flu. Don’t do that. Don’t ever do that. I survived. It didn’t feel good. I was sick for, oh, three weeks….and that brings us to Las Vegas.
