Well, readers... it has been far too long. I have officially made it through the first quarter of the year with my sanity in tact (I think). With each passing day, I fall a little bit more in love with my students (well, most of them anyway) and grow a little bit more frustrated with our broken school system. But that is a topic for another [anonymous!] blog.
I didn't completely fall off the exercise wagon once my triathlon training was over. Most weekends I managed to get a decent workout in on both days, and I (usually) convinced myself to run 2-3 miles at least one of the nights during the work week. Now it's time to get serious again, because on Monday I am starting the training for my next half marathon. I will be running the Mercedes Half Marathon in B'ham on February 15th. I haven't quite figured out how to prepare for a hilly race in a flat land, but I am thinking I will just work in some stadium runs here and there. I am also toying with the idea of just continuing training after that race and then doing another Rock n' Roll Marathon (Nashville) in April with Carleen...:)
I was thinking it would be really difficult to train like I did for the marathon because I just don't have as much time, and my job can be really exhausting, so I did a trial run this week: I ran after school three times (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) and did roughly three miles each time. I actually found that I was much more cheerful and energetic throughout the week. It could be a coincidence, but I am going to tell myself it was because of the boost in endorphin production. Monday's run was horrifying because I am a fool. I work about 20 minutes away from our house and I decided I was going to find a park near the school that I could run in, so I turned to google maps. I saw a nice green splotch called Cullinin Park that I thought I would try out. Great idea, right?
Wrong. In the parking lot, I was a little weirded out that there were all these scary-looking large bearded men just sitting in cars or standing around the picnic tables. But then I convinced myself that I was just being a wimp with an over-zealous imagination and started my run on the trail. Then, I promptly proceeded got horribly, disconcertingly lost. Which would have been fine, really, had the trail been a nice, well maintained path. Instead it was a very overgrown, ant-infested trail with potholes cleverly hidden beneath a hay-like grass mat. If I slowed from a jog to a walk, I was immediately assaulted by a trillion bugs, so I had to keep moving. Still, I would have been fine had I not stumbled upon the "shelters." After 15 minutes of bewildered running, I came across several lean-to type structures made from big blue tarps. The ground was littered with beer bottles, and since I stumbled upon the first lean-to from the back, I had no way of telling if there was some crazy homeless mass-murderer waiting behind that tarp to rape and maim me or not. So I panicked and left the woods immediately, even though the road I was closest to was nowhere near where I had parked my car.
Conveniently, I had left my phone (and everything else) in my car, and I hadn't really studied a map of the surrounding area before traipsing off into the woods (silly me assumed it was a well maintained and marked park!) Luckily, I saw a man a few hundred yards down by a stream who was fishing with his kids. I asked him if he had a phone I could borrow to look at a map (as a child of the technology age, I assume everyone under the age of 50 has a smartphone) and he said he didn't have anything with him, that his wife had everything in the car with her, and that she would be back shortly. I asked him if he could just point be back to the one road I knew (Hwy 6) and he couldn't do that either. He did point me in the rough direction of the entrance to the park, so I entered the woods again. Then I got lost again, and continued to run another 1.5 miles until I popped out of the woods again, only to realize that I was roughly a quarter mile down the road from where I came out last time! SERIOUSLY DISTRESSING.
Now I was somewhere really near panic mode. I had twisted my ankle twice and was pretty sure I had at least 13 strains of poison ivy on my body, plus it was starting to get dark. As I looked around and contemplated hitchhiking, I saw with joy that there was a car now by by bridge where the family was fishing. His wife had returned with a phone! If nothing else I could call Rob and ask him to save me. But then it dawned on me that I don't have his new phone number memorized. I knew the first six numbers, but could not for the life of me remember the last four (you can be darn sure I know it now!) I thought I would still ask her if I could look at a map on her phone. Sadly, when I asked she informed me that she did not have a smartphone. I was really near tears at this point and she must have felt bad for me, because she offered to drive me back to my car out of the kindness of her heart. I have to pay that one forward sometime soon. When we got back to my car, many of the creepy guys that were there when I started the run over an hour ago were still there, so I've concluded that it is a drug dealer spot and that there are, in fact, frightening places in Sugar Land, TX.
Needless to say, I will not be returning to that particular location to run again. My poor ankle still hurts when I roll it too far in any direction, and I did get some wicked poison ivy on my left ankle, plus a plethora of bug bites and scratches all over my legs and face. I plan to write a strongly worded letter to the Parks&Rec department ASAP. They should at least put up a sign that says "Warning: Makeshift Ghetto."
Wednesday and yesterday, I ran in my good ol' safe neighborhood. Next week, when training really starts, I will try some other routes near school, maybe leaving straight from school rather than driving somewhere else first. I'm looking forward to following a schedule again!
