Defiance on a Snow-Covered 10!

After church, meetings, etc, I was ready to run this afternoon. After all, the weathermen and women were saying it was going to be in the mid-upper 30's and the snow should start melting. So I geared up, slightly less so than yesterday, because it was "warmer" and headed out. Except, it was not really warmer at all. Well, maybe a couple degrees warmer, but the wind more than cancelled that out.

From now on in this post, you may see an asterisk (*) after a colorful word. This means that the colorful word was not the original word which I spoke or thought about. The colorful word will be more creative than the original one.

As I was doing my warmup walk to the start of my run, I thought "*Potatoes!*", it is much colder than it is supposed to be. Then, when getting ready to start, I said "*Phooey!*", as I forgot to turn my watch on. As I started, I thought *Aw..Pickles!* because the inside of my left knee felt a bit sore. Thankfully, that worked itself out after about a mile.

I knew a general direction, but wasn't sure how far I would end up going. I headed up one of the busier streets I would be traveling on when a truck came a bit to close to me, in my opinion. I shouted "You *fine young cannibal*!" at the truck, but I'm certain I was not heard. It made me feel a bit better though...

Despite the cold, I felt pretty good as I moved along at a pretty slow pace. I felt I was working a bit harder than the speed I was traveling, which I attribute to the snow covered roads. (I have a better appreciation for yesterday's run now, it was quite good given the conditions). As I approached the 3 mile mark, I considered turning around to run a total of 6 miles, but I said "*Sucks to* 6 miles" and continued. Same thing when I could have turned around at 3.5 or 4 miles. "*Shove* 7 miles!", "*Zap* 8 miles". I was in a defiant mood and was going to do the entire loop!

As I ran out of the more wooded area onto a street surrounded by a more farm-like setting, the wind hit me and I said "*Rutabaga!*". The wind only got worse once I turned onto the busier street, where it was directly in my face. I did feel tough though. I was running on a snow covered shoulder of a busy road, with the wind howling in my face and thought that if I could do this, I can handle about anything.

As I finished up my loop and headed back to the start, I noticed that I was only at 9 miles. "*Fiddlesticks* 9 miles", I shouted and continued on. Even though it wasn't fast, I thought of this run as the turning point where I was back to my Brooksie Way shape and am now ready to move forward. Doing 10 miles would just make it better. So, I finished up and briefly thought about doing 13.1, just because. "*Fudge* that!"



I should really rest tomorrow, but if it is as "warm" as they said it will be, it will be hard not to do something. Maybe just a short recovery run..