The Anti-Running Runner

To the person who honked at me today: you may be someone I know, but I have no idea. As a general rule, if you honk because we know each other, I will probably never figure it out in that moment. It's too hard to make out a person's face in the car, especially tinted windows. I am a spaced-out kind of runner. I'm aware of my surroundings, but not so much auditory awareness. Meaning loud noises are shocking and usually obnoxious. I'm almost always listening to podcasts. Not so loud that I'm unable to hear things around me. But it means there is someone talking in my ear and I'm trying to listen, whether it be Two Gomers Run For Their Lives or one of the many fiction podcasts I subscribe to ( Dunesteef , TGMG , Journey Into , Podcastle , Escape Pod , Pseudopod , Beneath Ceaseless Skies , The Roundtable Podcast ) which are all really good and entertaining. Helpful distractions while running. The thing about getting honked at while running, it never has the in...

No, I'm not referring to the Honey Bucket visits from the last post. Horrible runs meaning extremely difficult jogs. My last few runs (a six and a couple eights with shorter distances thrown in there) have been quite challenging. I blame the heat (seriously, it is KILLER here), but I also blame my lack of talent as a runner. And my inability to get up early. I don't have "it" like some people do. But that's okay. It's not a complaint. I do have perseverance, so that's in my favor. But getting back up to higher mileage is such an ordeal for me. As a 10-12-minute miler, it takes a long time for me to get some of these runs done. I guess this is one of the reasons why I'm the Anti-Running Runner. While in Georgia meeting my new niece (!!!) I got a chance to run in my sister's neighborhood two weekends in a row. I've mentioned before how much I love running there. Here I am doing one loop around her neighborhood (about 4 miles). It was ho...

I've been wanting to write some of my past running stories. In particular, events or things that happened before I started the blog. I have fond memories of my first half marathon, Hood 2 Coast, some not-so-fond memories of my first marathon, and other running tales I could share. To get the ball rolling, I wanted to explain what happened to me on my run today. On Tuesday, I finally managed to run five miles with the Vibrams. Yay! It was a humid day, but cloudy. Not so much blazing hot sun beating down. But for some reason every gnat in Florida was out for an evening...stroll flight?....on my running route to the St. Pete Pier. I have a bug phobia, so that wasn't fun, but I was glad that my toes didn't hurt. Today, I left work intending to run the same route. It was sunny and hot at first, but I noticed some dark clouds in the distance. They moved in and I had that glorious sensation of cooler air for about a mile before the rain began. It felt so good. I was loving i...

My first iTouch arrived this week, and I haven't spent a moment apart from it since. Of course, when the newness wears off, I'm sure I'll be able to leave it behind on a trip to the grocery store...maybe. Today, I ran 12 miles as per my training schedule, and it was tough! Probably because I chose to run 12 laps around the park (1 lap = 0.9 miles) and completed the mileage with the 1.2 miles that it takes to get to the park and back from my house. That's the benefit; I knew how far I was going for sure. Last week turned out to be 9.8 miles instead of 10 when we clocked it afterward with the car! Oh well. Close enough. That was almost easy compared to my run today. However, I made it so I really don't want to complain about it. Because my iTouch has now been loaded with all my favorite podcasts, of course I brought it along to listen to the usual ( Dunesteef ). Then I realized I wouldn't need to bring my camera separately. The iTouch is a camera and does vid...

I couldn't be happier with the 10-mile run I did this morning. I ran from 8am to 10am pretty much on the dot, so that would be a 12-minute-mile average. I'm pretty sure that was my speed, so I'm really hopeful I went the full distance. With the Women's Half Marathon on Nov 20th, I've been working hard to keep on track with my training. My husband and I came to visit my sister and her husband for a long weekend. We also brought our dog, who loves it up here. Check out all the pics I took while running on the Photos tab. I was concerned about the cold, because the temperature when I got up was about 50 degrees. I've been used to the 80s for most of my recent jogs, but the cooler air felt great. I started with sweats and my long-sleeved shirt from the Gasparilla Marathon. It's by far my favorite long-sleeved running shirt. After the first five-mile lap I did around the neighborhood, I dropped the sweats off at my sister's house, and my shorts wit...

I love this time of year. The days are getting cooler, the humidity level decreases, and running feels pretty good. My running routine changes throughout the year. I have quite a few races coming up, so my current schedule is to run every other day (average 3 days a week, sometimes 4). My favorite time to run is after work along the waterfront. I change into running clothes and walk to the security-guarded parking garage where I leave my things in the car. The route I often take from the garage to the Pier and back is about 5 miles. My next race is the Women’s Half Marathon on Nov 21 st , so I’m increasing to 8 miles today. Nice and slow. During the summer, after work is not a fun time to run, but I have a really hard time getting up at 5am to run before. The anti-runner in me hits snooze until it's too late to run before work, and my punishment is to run in the Florida deathrays of the late afternoon. Lately, I have prefered this to waking up early. I...