December 29th - Training - Manchester, NH - 3.1

After last night's training run with GLRR, I was certainly feeling it my legs. Calfs were tight, quads were sore, and hamstrings were as flexible as steel cable wires. So what do I decide to do? Yup, go for a run. I knew that Friday I was going to put in a long run with Jess, Dave T, Linda, and a few others so I would take Thursday off and recover. I simply told myself go for 3 miles and just take it easy. 


Thats what I did. I decided I would run to my aunts house who lives exactly 3.1 miles away. Coincidence? I think not! I took off from my house knowing that Manchester has completed plowing and that the roads would not be too busy as it is was already noon on a Wednesday. Again my logic failed me forgetting that not only was I on break from college but high school students were on break as well. I should have factored that in considering I am a high school substitute teacher and that if there were school, I would be there.


Anyway, logic aside, I took my life into my hands dodging traffic as I made my way to my aunts house. I didn't even make it a half a mile before beginning to feel the effects of last nights training run. I could feel every step take a shot at my will power to complete this run. Not a good feeling when you are trying to avoid getting hit by teenagers in their speeding deathtraps.

(I would hate to lose at this game!)

As I made it down (well its actually an incline) Mammoth Road to the Derryfield Country Club, I was please to see that they had actually plowed their sidewalk and would be able to get out of harms way for at least a half a mile. No sooner do I get up onto the sidewalk, one of those teen deathtraps come flying by and decides it would be funny to drive through the puddle and soak the idiot running on the sidewalk.  Now just so you can picture this, the puddle was in no way in the path this teenage brainiac was driving. It would be like a baseball player running from first to second by way of right field. Luckily, I was still paying attention to the road and was able to avoid much of the roadside slushy as it only hit my lower body. He, however, did not miss the vocabulary lesson that ensued after this incident.


Now that I was cold and wet, I fought through the pain and decided it would be best to pick up the pace a little. I was about half way there and knew that I simply had to make it about 1/3 uphill and the rest of the run would be all downhill from there.


I made it to my aunts house, which was like walking into an oven when you have your cold weather running gear on, grabbed a bottle of water, sat on the lazy-boy, and watched some Sports Center to rest my crying legs. Tomorrow looks like it will be a rest day for sure. Maybe a little stationary biking to loosen the legs up but that's it. I need to be ready for Friday Morning's 12 Miler!