September 19, 2014

Naked and Afraid

For the past few nights, the kids, Jerry, and I have been watching an episode or two of Naked and Afraid. It's a survivalist show about two strangers (man and woman) who are put in a very remote place (the Amazon, or on an island in the middle of nowhere, etc.) without food, water, or clothing, and they have to survive off the land for 21 days. The only thing they get for doing it is bragging rights. I wouldn't last an hour on that show!

Anyway, after watching an episode yesterday, Eli said to Noah, "Let's go outside and build a shelter!" so the two of them went out into the woods across the street and started collecting sticks and branches off the ground to build a "shelter" in the front yard. It was so cute to see them working together as a team! They even found a Christmas tree that someone had thrown into the woods, and when Jerry got home from work, they had him saw the branches off. They actually built a pretty impressive fort!




This morning, I had my long run on the schedule--8 miles. I was feeling really, really lazy, and the last thing I wanted to do today was run. I got dressed to run right when I woke up, before I could even think about it, but after I got the kids off to school, I sat on the couch for about 10 minutes coming up with excuses not to run today. I almost had myself convinced to do my long run on Sunday instead of today, but I knew that come Sunday, I'd regret that decision!

Finally, I forced myself out the door. I decided to drive 20 minutes to a bike path instead of running around here, because I knew if I drove that far to get there, I'd be less likely to quit early. I didn't set any sort of time goal, and I just told myself that I could go as slowly as I felt like, as long as I was running it. It was 45 degrees again, and I felt really cold taking the kids to the bus stops, so I wore long sleeves for my run.

I call this particular path the Metropark Trail, because it connects four of the Metroparks around here, and is probably about 30 miles long. I usually run the southeastern 5-10 miles of it as an out-and-back. I parked at the community center, and then headed out. Immediately, my legs felt really clumsy and rubbery, so I knew my pace wasn't going to be on par with last week, but I was totally fine with that. I just wanted to finish!

The run was pretty uneventful, except for when I almost got hit by a car (twice!) due to drivers who were texting while driving. Thankfully, I pay attention to the drivers, and I was able to jump out of the way before getting hit. I always obey the crosswalk signals, but the drivers who aren't paying attention don't notice when I'm crossing, so when they go to turn on red while looking at their phones, they nearly hit me.

The hardest part about this path is that there is an overpass that I have to run over. That's the only form of hill training I ever get, because we just don't have hills around here. I love running the overpass, even though it's hard, because it's a pretty cool view from the top.



Eight miles later, I was so glad to be back at the car! Of course, after running, I'm always glad I did it--it's just hard to make myself go when I really feel like wearing sweats and reading my book on the couch ;) But now, I have two rest days in a row, so it was worth it.



Tomorrow, Noah has his first cross country meet--eek! I'm nervous/excited for him. I know he'll do great, though!

4 comments:

  1. That's a better shelter than a lot of people on that show end up building.

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  2. After almost being hit several times in similar situations, I have become really picky about when I'll run outside. Honestly, I've become kind of a scaredy cat about it and only seem to want to run on my treadmill lately! I'm glad you're ok- stay safe!

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  3. So happy you got it done!! Great job!!

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  4. Sounds like a good run minus the jerks in the cars. I used to love to run this one stretch of road by my apartment (a few years back) and cars NEVER paid attention to me. I was almost hit numerous times. :( Glad to know you're paying attention and have the smarts to know that people in cars suck!

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