A Tribute, A Sacrifice, A New Place To Run

Today, I am paying tribute. In fact, I am so moved by the things to which I am paying tribute that I have decided to sacrifice my weekend run.

Please, a moment of silence.

Mmmmmm ...

Yes, that's right ... I'm skipping the chance to take a Sunday evening run for the sake of watermelon and beer. What you don't see is the frozen Newman's Own four cheese pizza cooking to a crisp in the oven. Health food.

What? It's Bud Select and watermelon is good for you. And, the pizza? It's just good.

So I actually have a semi-valid excuse for choosing not to run this weekend. I didn't do it yesterday because of a marathon shopping trip with friend-o Adrienne, a few hours by the pool, and because I had to say goodbye to my BFF Jeff, who is off to Sacramento to sing and dance his heart out for the rest of the summer. I'm not running today because I just got back to the store with my precious and delicious cargo and I must attend to it. Oh yeah, and because of this interesting problem I've run into.

Dude, the days are too long for running!

I love, love, love Daylight Saving Time and all that it symbolizes, but man it puts a damper on my workout schedule. I just can't wait until 8:30 or 9 at night to run for the sake of waiting until the sun goes down and the temperature drops. I'm a nine-to-fiver. A lazy one at that, who enjoys her sleep and is not willing to sacrifice it.

[I should note that as I sat here typing that last sentence it occurred to me that I should consider running in the morning to solve that problem. But, in light of my upcoming crack-of-dawn boot camp workouts, I'm going to ignore that idea. You understand, right?]

Anyway, this does not mean I will be giving up running for the summer. It just means that I'm going to eat pizza and watermelon and drink beer tonight. Because it's the weekend and I'm not going to stress about it.

On a positive workout note, I tried a new park on Thursday! Well, actually it's not a park. It's a running path at a corporate "park" in my area. I've driven by it many times but have yet to take the plunge to try it out. But I did, and I like it! Yay!

1. It's 98% flat (and 87% of all statistics are made up)
2. It's very un-busy

What's interesting to me is that un-busy part. It's both the reason I've been avoiding it and the reason I love it. I've been avoiding it because I'm still very scared to run alone in unfamiliar, not family oriented places (like parks with playgrounds). It's why I haven't gone running on the streets yet and why I haven't tried Five Mile Trail yet (that and it's apparently very difficult).

Now, there's part of me that realizes that I'm not exactly a primary target for would-be attackers. I'm not a "pretty young thing," to use the words of Mr. M. Jackson, and I don't think I appear to be easy to kidnap or anything--it'd take three people to pick me up and carry me away and I don't think attackers travel in packs, especially not in the 'burbs. So, what is there to be afraid of? I don't know. I'm paranoid. I also think, "What if I fall or get hurt some other way?" I run with my phone, so it's not like I couldn't call for help. Ugh, whatever.

Hey, so how do you handle this situation? Are you afraid to run on your own? Do you take special precautions?

So anyway, back to the new running path. It's flat, it's unpopulated, there are no snotty--I mean precious children bouncing about. It's nice! It goes next to the highway, too, which helps drown out my locomotive breathing. Judging by my experience running Week 3 at Veterans park, I think the shorter part of this trail is just under a mile. There's a longer path, but I think it probably goes over a mile. I opted for the shorter this time. I will be returning, probably this week.

I should note that Thursday's run was not an easy one. My body was not cooperating and I was getting really hot really quickly. (I think this is because of that extra-long daylight issue.)

Okay, my beer is probably close to frozen in the freezer, so I better go rescue it. Be jealous. =)