I drove to Midwest City today and went for my final “long” run before the marathon. WHICH IS IN ELEVEN DAYS. It was a beautiful afternoon… Warm, dazzlingly bright sunshine combed through with soft, cool breezes. Sleepy ducks and geese everywhere. Very few people on the track and only non-obnoxious golfers at the golf course. Beautiful day. Drop dead gorgeous. A handful of noteworthy things happened.
I got a sunburn on my mouth. All the way around but mostly on the top edge of my upper lip. It smarts, and it is making my nightly cup of piping hot chamomile tea a bit tricky. I blame last night’s Blood Moon. What’s up with that, Blood Moon??
A super adorable boxer puppy semi-attacked me. He was on a leash (a really long, too long leash) held not tightly by his human who could not have outweighed him by more than like a pound. She was dealing with her cell phone and beanie cap, giving nonchalant attention to her boxer’s energy. I literally jumped sideways like Russell Westbrook in order to avoid him. I was also trying to speak nicely to him to make friends, but because of my ear buds on max volume my voice was on max volume and I ended up sort of screaming at the dog. This scared the petite woman to death, and she gave me a look that really hurt my feelings. An older gentleman watching from a distance shook his head in disapproval, and because of the not-at-all-safe-for-radio lyrics playing in my ears I couldn’t tell if he disapproved of her inattention or the dog’s aggressiveness or my filthy running songs. Not that I was singing those lyrics; I wasn’t. I was screaming WELL HELLO THERE CUTIE!! But it all made me feel suddenly very self-conscious. I sulked away like I had been scolded for something instead of semi-attacked by a cute boxer, and when I realized the injustice (THE INJUSTICE!!) I sprinted. I ran like the wind for half a mile.
I saw a ghost. I’m not kidding. Approaching this particular concrete bridge which make my feet feel so weird when they strike, I saw a tiny, slight little elderly woman focused like a diamond-tipped laser beam (is that a thing?) on pushing her walker. She was smaller than a third grader and bundled up in a coat, scarf, boots, gloves, a hat, and ear muffs. Her bluish white hair exploded in ringlets from beneath the binding of her hat. Her eyes were clear but she never made eye contact with me. She was just. So. Focused. We passed each other, and about ten paces later I stopped to look around and see if she had a caretaker nearby. I had not seen where she came from or anything! Do you know who I saw when I looked around? No one. Not even her. She had vanished you guys, and there were no hiding places. Ghost.
I nearly choked from disgusting thick nastiness right there on the track. Handsome had bought me a handful of energy gel choices for experimenting with before the race, and I did so today. Results: I really like Gatorade chews and maybe those little sports beans Carrie shared with me a while back. The most famous of the three, though? “GU?” Oh sweet granola, that was disgusting. Remember the movie Matrix? It was like slurping the thick, sticky, cloudy stuff Keanu Reeves swims in while trapped in that pod. You cannot swallow the stuff properly; you can only hope it slides stubbornly down your throat before you stop breathing. And it tasted like pretend raspberries. Or some kind of pretend berries. Unpleasant. I gagged and cried tears, it was so bad.
So that was my afternoon! Eighteen miles and these four interesting events later, I didn’t even curl up into a fetal position like last time. Afterwards I hobbled through Walmart for cat food and grocery essentials and didn’t even care that I was mostly leaning forward on the buggy like some kind of lazy teenager.
Do hard things, but don’t yell at strange dogs.
XOXOXOXO
