The past two days were a bit of a slip on my part. Friday I didn't run because of the weak excuse of not having my computer and yesterday because of the even weaker excuse of just being too lazy and having a little too much fun the night before. I guess this pattern is expected of someone trying to get back into shape after two years but I'm not taking behavior like this lightly. So therefore, this morning when I awoke to driving rain outside my window, I decided to give myself a punishment, by slapping on my running shoes.
My roommates were stunned to see me in my running gear. "B-but it's raining...", my direct roommate, Alex, said. I just smiled gave them a shrug and said, "You gotta do what ya gotta do." I haven't told them about the blog yet. I haven't really told many people. I don't quite feel comfortable shoving it in people's faces quite yet because there is still room for error, but maybe in a week or two, I'll begin to go public.
I decided to upgrade myself to three mile today because of both punishment and my good time on Thursday. At the bottom floor of Di Trag, before leaving to brave the wet weather, I noticed I didn't have my watch on. I knew that I was going to be forgetting it one of these days. I turned to go back inside but I weighed my option: It was raining and I was running three miles for the first time in quite a while. I decided that a watch was going to be completely pointless on this run. I was going to be very right.
The cold water coming from the sky was matched only by a very cold and strong wind that came in and stung me with every blow. My rationale was that eventually I would warm because I would be on the run. I was not correct in this prediction. The run didn't start out terrible I went by Big Tony's and then by street one would turn on for the two mile route. I refused to even look towards it, at the risk of temptation.
When I hit the only hill on the route, the weather became hell. I did what I could to power through it but I felt almost helpless in the chilling arms of mother nature. I was spouting more expletives than a crime movie set in south Boston. At the top of hill, the route takes me into a park where I take a break from concrete and start running through the trails. Leaves and branches, covered in droplets of water, were overgrown on the trail since the times that I rarely ran this route from freshman year. You could guess then, that I got more wet then if I stayed on the street, but at this point everything was heavy and weighing me down anyway.
Normally the toughest part of the run is the end, this run was no exception. When I emerged from the trails, I took a turn on the street and the wind was even stronger, blowing my cold wet shirt right up against my shivering chest. This run was a rough one, that is until I took a right onto the street that PC is on. This busy suburban street caused me to think for a moment. I wasn't thinking rationally but that this point, through all the pain from the wind, rain, and cold temperature, I began to feel like what I just went through made me so much stronger. I sped down that final street. I trounced across the wet and muddy lawn of the campus, powered onto the parking lot behind the library and flew amongst the apple trees behind the campus chapel. This run wasn't fantastic, and I felt like absolute shit and I rung out my clothes, but it was a necessary step.
While in my room, I began to bellow several deep coughs. I took an air borne, a mucinex, and a few puffs from my inhaler from childhood. Hopefully, this little final paragraph won't be a foreshadowing to any sort of sickness.
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