Scenes from the Run

On Friday, the Rays had their longest game ever in franchise history...18 innings.

WHY?!?!

We were there the entire time. (Well, Matt was there; I was sleeping in the car by inning 14.) We didn't get home until 3am. Needless to say, I didn't wake up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Saturday for my long run. I had been mentally preparing myself for this long AM run, and missing it really threw me off and wreaked some mental havoc. I decided to try to salvage it in the evening.

I'm such a rebel.

This didn't go as planned. There were quite a few factors that led to the run being pretty damn awful; it was the first bad run I've had in awhile. I don't want to get into all the factors, but the most detrimental was that the top of my foot started hurting again. I had to stop to retie my shoes multiple times, and ended up cutting the run short. Really short.

(I stopped taking the NSAIDs for a couple days because my stomach was just not happy, but after the pain came back yesterday, I went back on them. Frustrating.)

I passed at least a dozen deer on the run.

But the bright side was that I got to enjoy the golf course and beautiful scenery of my parents' neighborhood, so at least there was that.

I also passed quite a few squirrels who were not at ALL afraid of me.

 I had taken the golf cart out earlier to scope out drinking fountains, but only found two. I'd left my fuelbelt at home, a terrible mistake for a potential 18-miler, but thought I could make due with just two water stops if I was strategic about reaching them.

Part of the path I ran. The fun thing about running golf courses is that you get some hill work in there, too!

Unfortunately, I wasn't strategic. Carrying my Chomps was a pain because I didn't have the fuelbelt, and they all melted together and were hard to take. Plus I had to wait to hit the drinking fountains to take them, so my timing was totally off.

I was sluggish, dehydrated, and nursing my foot. (And don't get me started on the stomach issues I dealt with yesterday.) So, yeah, not at all a good run.

I'm hoping this foot pain was just a fluke, because the more rest I need to take, the less likely I'll be able to run the marathon in November, and I'm starting to worry it's not going to heal in time.

But at least I got out there. This week can only be better.

How was your long run this weekend?
How do you come back from a rough run?
What kind of wildlife do you see on your runs?
Is it fall for you yet? It's still in the 90s and humid here. I can't wait for a break in temperature.

ABK