Chafed Thighs and Apple Pies*

Blackie (our black Pontiac) decided her two power windows were no longer needed and thus quit allowing them to roll up or down. I don't see window function as an option, so I took Blackie into the shop today so they could change her mind.

I called the shop this afternoon to tell them I'd be bringing Blackie in and asked when they closed. They were only open until 6:00pm so I knew I'd have to hurry home from work so I could pick her up and drop her off on time.

Now the other part of my plan, since Seth still works nights, was to drop the car off and run home. If I took a slight detour it would be just over 3 miles. Perfect. I drove the route on my way home to check it out and started to get a little nervous. It was pretty much all uphill. And it was 90 degrees outside. But, I could do it, right?

So I got home from work, changed into my running clothes and drove down to drop off Blackie. I had my ipod and stopwatch with me like usual, but today I thought maybe I should carry a bottle of water with me too. I walked about a quarter mile to warm-up and then started running.

Holy crap it was hard. I started out running on a steep part of the hill and it didn't get much better after that. I ran about a half mile before ditching my water bottle because it was throwing off my rhythm. Don't worry, I threw it in the proper receptacle.

After another half mile I came to a fork in the road. This was the point where I could either take the shorter, easier way, or take the harder way which would end up equaling the 3.1 miles I needed. It must have been the heat that made me delirious enough to choose the longer hard way.

I ran for another half mile up the hill until I couldn't run anymore. I ended up walking 3/4 of a mile. After this point the running was all slightly downhill, but it was hot and my legs were tired. I ran half a mile with the sun in my eyes before I stopped again. The heat and sweat was starting to get to me and now I was dealing with some chafing between my thighs. Yes, I'm going there. My legs were now Jello and my thighs stung with every step. I could either run the rest of the way to get it over with faster thus speeding up the friction on my thighs, or try and walk bow-legged for the last stretch. I settled on a combination of the two.

By the time I made it through the front door, my thighs were rubbed red and stinging, my legs were about to collapse underneath me and sweat was pouring into my eyes. And I managed to add six minutes to my time. Wahoo!

I've actually had a lot of successes in my training this last week or two and it took today's experience to make me remember something very important. Don't bite off more than you can chew. Anytime you do something clearly out of your fitness range you are going to end up frustrated. It's good to push yourself in order to improve, but you've got to set reasonable goals.

I'm going to run again once more this week. I'm going to try running the race course. I almost did it a week or two ago without stopping but didn't quite make it. This week I'm going to.

You better watch out race course. I'm coming for you.

*I had to mention apple pies so you'd read this post. And it made the title sound more cheery.

Punishment or Test... You Decide

Today when I got home from work I briefly thought about not going running. It'd been raining on and off all day and I'd just gotten my new yoga DVDs in the mail. "Stop making excuses," I told myself, "just go out and run before it really does rain. If you get in the habit of putting it off, you'll never do it." So I put on my running gear, put my freshly made house key into the secret Velcro pouch in my skirt and went out.

Today seemed like an easy running day. It was one of those days where for some reason my legs felt lighter and running was a little more enjoyable. I admired the dark clouds and the soaring jets from the air force base. It was really nice out.

But it seems I spoke too soon. Exactly half way through my run, it started to sprinkle. Then it began to rain. Then it rained harder. Then it poured. Then it hailed. I was at least a mile away from home out in a torrential downpour. I set my routine aside and tried to run as fast as I could to get home. But, alas, my weak legs and unconditioned lungs were no match for the rain. Despite the desires of my heart to quickly get out of the sheets of cold rain and hail, my body told me 'no.'

I was soaked to the bone running through rivers of water. I stopped trying to jump over the muddy puddles and streams because at least an inch or more of water covered everything. As I made it back to my apartment complex, I was at first relieved to find shelter under the carports, but again dismayed as the rivers that flowed beneath them were even larger.

Finally I made it back to the apartment door. As I reached for the house key in the Velcro pocket I thought, "that key better still be there or ELSE." It was.

Throughout this whole ordeal I thought to myself, is God punishing me? Is this a sign I'm not supposed to run? Or is this one of those trials that's supposed to make me stronger? All I can say is, it better be the latter. And if it happens again, I quit.

No, my shirt is not supposed to be see-through. Yes, there is a reason I'm folding my arms.

Venting

So it's 3:30pm on Friday afternoon. I get to go leave work in exactly one hour. The way this last hour has been, the weekend can't come soon enough. Seth just happens to be taking a nap right now and I'm really pissed off and I need to gripe to somebody so you all get to listen.

As many of you know, I'm an x-ray technician. I work in the R & D department so I get to help build and test all the new x-ray equipment before it goes out to regular production. So about an hour ago I was working really hard trying to make the rest of the day go by fast. The thing I was working on was a radiator-like machine called a heat exchanger. This particular heat exchanger weighs about 70 lbs. It's not easy to handle.

This heat exchanger runs on oil, so when I first build it, I have to fill it up with oil and make sure there's no air bubbles in it. That's because when it gets hooked up to an x-ray tube if there's bubbles in the system, it'll make the x-rays look bad. It'll make the doctors think you have a big tumor. The oil filling process is not fun. There's long hoses flying everywhere and I have to man-handle the heat exchanger to rotate it and shake it to get all the bubbles out. It's not a pleasant experience on a normal day and today was worse.

There are 2 oil connections. One is for the oil to go in, one is for the oil to go out. I got the "oil in" hose connected and was in the process of connecting the other hose when the stupid connector got stuck open and began gushing oil everywhere. ARGH! I finally got the damn thing shut off but not soon enough. The heat exchanger and cart it was sitting on were covered in oil as was the floor. My clothes were somehow spared, but at that point it wouldn't have made any difference. I wanted to scream really bad words and smash everything on the floor.

So, I've spent at least the last half hour trying to clean up the huge mess. I was hot and sweaty and tired and pissed and then I got paint thinner on my jeans and I just want to go home. I finally got the heat exchanger filled up all the way which was no easy feat. For some reason (I wonder why...) today it felt like it weighed 500 pounds and things just weren't working. I decided I'll finish it on Monday when I've had time to forget this unpleasant afternoon.

I need a vacation.