You Better Run

I skipped my workout at the gym during lunch today. My left leg calf has been hurting like hell since I ran on Monday, so when a friend emailed to ask if I wanted to eat lunch together, I gladly accepted.

We spent the entire lunch hour talking about the most random crap ever. I'm quite sure that the subject of super beautiful Canadian Laura Vandervoort and her show, "V", as well as sexy Julie Benz and her show, "No Ordinary Family", both came up. I know this because I'm the one who mentioned them. It was then that my friend informed me that BOTH television programs have been cancelled for the next season.

I think I almost cried when I heard the news.

After work, feeling a tad bit guilty about skipping my run and knowing that I have precious little time to prepare for the race on Memorial Day, I went on ahead to the gym for a boring but precisely timed treadmill run.

I hate going to any gym after work because everyone knows that 5-7 is the most crowded 2 hours for any gym on any workday. Today was no different. The place was packed.

I strapped my iPod to my arm, set it to play only 'Electronica', since that type of beat would help motivate me to run faster, whereas a random Pink Floyd song might have the opposite effect. Thus, I wanted to make sure nothing slow or depressing played during my workout. And then I set about trying to figure out this strange new treadmill.

It had all kinds of funky settings and options and crap I didn't know what the hell it was or why anyone might want it. Finally I just hit "Quick Start" and then searched for the "speed up" arrows. Once I'd found them I kept speeding up until I'd reached a pace that would make me run hard enough to hopefully begin working the pain in the may calf out, but not fast enough to cause me to pull anything. I finally found how to set the displays to show me my mile per minute pace ...

Uh oh, tornado sirens are going off. Be right back ...

OK, I'm just gonna blog through the tornado. If I die then you'll know because this post will end suddenly. Yeah, OK, whatever.

I finally found how to set the displays on the treadmill to show me my mile per minute pace, how far I had run, and the total time I had been running. Everything else was irrelevant to me.

Having not run AT ALL in over 2 years, I figured a 10 minute mile pace was a reasonable goal. The last race I ran, 2 years ago, I had a severely bruised foot and was in lousy shape due to the lack of training resulting from the injury. I ran the race anyway and averaged just under 10 minutes per mile, landing a 29:54 5K finish. That's a truly crappy time, not anything a competitive runner would ever admit to, but as I have become less and less competitive over the years and more and more of a 'jogger,' I figured I'd take it and be glad for it. At least I wasn't dead last for my age group.

With 2 more years having passed since the last race, I'm being pretty ambitious trying to duplicate that time. We'll see how it goes.

Anyway, I put in my earbuds, turned on my iPod, and slowly increased the speed of the treadmill until I reached a 10 minute mile pace at the start of mile number 2. Several very good looking girls came upstairs, walking past me to other treadmills and ellipticals out of my line of sight. I tried my best to ignore them and keep my head aimed forward and slight up, to make sure my form and my breathing were correct (Good runners don't swivel their heads around to check out hot girls - a little tip from me to you.) Some woman got on the treadmill in front of me. She wasn't ugly and she wasn't hot, for which I was grateful. She was no distraction at all. There was crap on the TVs overhead. My iPod was thumping with Fluke's "Atom Bomb." And my calf hurt like hell.

I tried and tried to fall into a groove. My lower back started to wimp out on me. It has been a major weak spot in all my workouts lately. I don't know why. It was trying to spasm on me now. I tried to straighten my back and run taller, with my chin up high. My back just bitched more. Then I noticed a workout class going on in the basketball gym directly in front of me. People were running suicides and some funky side-stepping thing that reminded me of football practice. When I saw the sprints I thought to myself, "I should be doing that. Some good sprint work would help me run a faster race." Plus, I could rest in between sprints. I distracted myself for the rest of the 2nd mile with watching those poor bastards running suicides.

By the third mile I was running out of gas. My sinuses and throat were dried out and I wasn't breathing well as a result. I slowed to 11 minute miles, a really crappy pace. I did that for the next half mile before speeding back up to a 10 minute mile pace for the final half mile. After reaching 3 miles, I began to slow the treadmill down until I was walking.

I felt like hell. My total time for the 3 miles was under 35 minutes, but that's still pretty bad and I only have time for 1 more workout before the actual race. I suspect I will not be running a good pace for this race. But we'll see.

Anyway, I stretched A LOT while watching the class downstairs still sprinting and doing some funky one-legged squats. I was pouring sweat like a French midget IMF chief facing a rape trial. I grabbed my stuff out of my locker, threw a towel over my car seats, and drove myself home for a shower and a meal.

And then I watched "Modern Family" cause Sofia Vergera is so super hot. And also the show is funny. And after that, "Cougar Town", because Courtney Cox is hot. And also the show is funny. Then tornado warnings starting slamming my TV and I decided to write an overly long and boring blog post about today's workout. I have no idea why.