The Anti-Running Runner

Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. Humperdink is.... Wait, no, that's another story. Today, I'm back after a long time lapse. I've blogged about writing quite a bit over at Writing for the Love . But it's been a tough summer for running. I feel like that every summer, but this one felt worse than others. It didn't rain as much as usual, and I have a theory that the heat index was higher because of it. The humidity...killer. Although my running suffered from consistency this summer, I still ran fairly regularly. Thanks to the bi-weekly group runs at  St. Pete Running Company , I was able to join in a few times and ran with friends new and old. The Blackjack group run. I'm in pink in the center. We all got two cards on the way out and back. At the store, we could hit or stay. Winners got a prize. They think up such fun things for the group runs. More on the SPRC  below. On Wednesday mornings, I got up early to meet a friend, Te...

When I set my alarm for seven this morning, I knew there was a chance I would simply turn it off and sleep on since I didn't get to bed until midnight last night. That's exactly what I did. My alarm beeped, I shut it off, and decided not to rise until hubby did. He'd be getting up soon (helping his uncle on a house project), but I didn't realize how soon. Twenty minutes after I shut mine down, his went off. I took that as a nudge from above to stop snoozing and do what I was thinking about doing all day yesterday: go on a run with some strangers. On Facebook, I had seen a public invitation to come out and run with the St. Pete Running Company , a new store only five minutes from my house. Recently, I ran into Coach Dillon, the cross country coach when I was in high school. He mentioned the new store, so I liked their Facebook page . For today's run, they were calling it Run 4 on the 4th. That sounded great. I wanted to run today anyway, but would've be...

Today I wanted to run to the beach. It's a treat for me, but there's a cost. Ten miles. And I don't get to end at the beach, that's just the halfway point. But I love running to the water. There's just something about it. And most of the route (miles two through eight) is really beautiful. This morning I left around six thirty. Not early enough. It was soooo hot and humid already. I knew from the first mile that the run would be a challenge to finish, and that I'd end up walking some of it. Things I should've done differently: ~Gone to bed earlier last night ~Woken up earlier this morning ~Drank more water yesterday On Tuesday, I got up intending to run about four miles, and ended up doing seven. NOT normal for me. But some kind of fluke cold(er) front had settled over St. Pete. The cloud cover kept me from getting any direct beatings from the sun (not the case today). I thought this was probably the last cool day I'd have for a while. I sho...

I didn't realize it was National Running Day until I saw people posting about it on Facebook. Because I started meeting with a friend, Terry, each Wednesday morning to run, we already celebrated NRD without knowing it! These days my running averages three to ten miles about three times a week. It's that time of year where starting after sunrise becomes more and more challenging. When I do manage to crawl out of bed before sunrise (like today), it makes a huge difference. This was a wonderfully cool morning. Terry and I had a great time chatting, getting to know each other better, lifting each other up in encouragement, and praising God for the gift of another day to run. If I get a late start, I still try to run consistently with my planned goal of every other day. So my punishment for hitting snooze is suffering through the heat. A few pics from a late start a couple weeks ago at the pier: The pier building is closed but there's still a water fountain. Lo...