in which nothing bad happens

so about that 8am wake-up call? hollow laugh. it's hard, when your other half is on a 3-10am sleep schedule.

so i finally dragged myself up at 9:30. so i ran at 11am. it was like 30C and humid. wise! easy! obviously! and yet: it was just fine.

i drove to a park which i almost never go to, and which has a lot of shade, and which conveniently is the only part of the half i'm running on sunday that i'm not familiar with. in fact, the only time i ran there previously was on this race two years ago, and it was some overzealousness on this terrain that caused the last two miles to feel like helldamn punishment.

anyway, what i did was run 4 miles. it was supposed to be 'speedwork' but you remember operation not try running so fast and not get hurt? yes. and also the 16 miles from sunday was not entirely forgotten. so in the first mile i was caaaaautious. given the fatigue of my hamstrings, i felt pretty slow, stiff and shanky -- like maybe i was running on rusty stilts? and that seemed dumb, but i figured just be slow and warm up. i did NOT stalk my pace, and i waited for the little garmin BEEP... and it said i ran the first mile in 9:35. well, if that feels super slow, it'll be an ok day.

so i did my best to pick it up a bit, A BIT, and the other three miles were around 8:35-8:45. it was only 4 miles and it felt somewhat hard, but it was dumbass hot (whereas apparently the race will be like 18C and maybe raining?) and i got a little runner's high at the end even, which it's hard to get running slow. i'm getting increasingly more sure that i'm fixing my form in a way that prevents left leg injury, and i'm foamrolling my ass off (literally, that's where i'm sore/tight at present) and chug chug chug, building blocks, etc.

three other things about this run:

1. a random dude walked out of the forest onto the trail and politely asked me which way to the pavilion. there's like 3 pavilions within a mile of that spot. i described them to him, and he picked the one he wanted and i gave him directions and he headed off. he was carrying a huge box of tools. uh, weird?

2. i got winked at by what i can only describe as a dashing hipster construction worker. he held traffic while i crossed the road two times. i mean, he was holding traffic for this huge dumptruck, actually, but he graciously gestured for me to take advantage of the hold-up for my own purposes. i felt like running royalty! sweaty, disgusting run-royalty. now that i think about it, i was also wearing a pink top with (god help me, it was on sale) **ruffles** on it... yeah, overall i was probably looking pretty elegant.

3. labor day comes and goes, and they close the beach at this park, and turn off the water fountains. people? global warming? it's 34C with the humidity? let's rethink this policy. (i had lots of liquid with me, don't worry -- it's just not nice, though.)

anyway, the point of all this blathering is that it's working! i'm running as intended! ... eh, pace can fuck off. i'm not saying i'm not slightly terrified still, but no point in focusing on future horrors just yet. in other words: back to (real life) work.

maybe more after tomorrow's tempo, otherwise full deets on the weekend back-to-back on sunday. ... i know, the suspense might kill you.