The wind windeth

If you live in Chicago, you'll have noticed by now that the weather has gotten cooler (yay!) and it's a hell of a lot windier (boo!). I'm just saying.



This past Saturday marked the start of Winter Warriors training for CES. However, I had to run on my own because the parental units and my Aunt were in town for the weekend (birthday celebration for me and my cousin) and staying in Naperville. Luckily, Naperville has a lovely, sandy path to run on in the Prairie Preserve. Not gonna lie, it was a little dangerous...I started my run at 5:15 AM, so it was dark for the duration. I had several encounters with wild life, from deer jumping directly in front of me to dogs running under foot. There were many near-miss ankle-breaking incidents. Next time, I'm just running on Sunday. When there's light out. Sheesh. I did, however, make it home with just an elevated heart rate. As a neat side note, I managed to maintain the 10:00 for the whole run! Granted, it was only six miles, but I've got to start somewhere, right?! I'll have a few more chances to do my long runs solo this time around, because our 12 miler and the 10 miler a week later both fall on dates that I'll be away on holiday (and by holiday, I mean Christmas in Cleveland...at least I can get some hill work done in the Metro Parks).



I also opted not to run yesterday. Dunno...I was feeling tired and starting to miss my family, so I decided more sleep was in order. Unfortunately, this is hard to do because the heat won't work in my apartment. This is not too big of a deal right now because it doesn't even count as "cold" yet, but it could turn into a big deal soon. Before I went to bed last night, I checked the thermostat, which read 58 degrees. So I did call my landlord, and hopefully the problem will be remedied today. It's hard to justify a nice, cold run when you know that you'll be returning to a residence that could quite possibly be colder than it is outside. Word.

And thanks again to all of you who sent birthday wishes to me! They were most appreciated.