Meh and Redemption!

I know you're all waiting to hear what Saturday's long run had in store for me, so I won't keep you waiting...

I came, I ran (a little slower), I finished strong.

The weather was not nearly as bad as predicted, but it did become quite hot towards the end of our run. All in all, I panicked over nothing really. Maybe it helped me out in the end because I didn't allow myself to become complacent during the run at all. The whole time I was thinking, "...still have 6 miles left...don't get cocky..."

Now, while the weather did cooperate for the most part. My pace group, sadly, did not. There asshats present, ohhhhhh there were multiples of asshats, and they all seemed to congregate in the 10:00 pace group...

Strike One
Let's start with Red Shirt Guy. He was bobbing and weaving the entire time. In fact, all of the guys in our group seemed to be having some sort of competition with each other. Did I miss something? We're running a 10:00 pace, right? No one is going to win the long run. They seemed to have a great deal of difficulty mastering the two-by-two concept.

Strike Two
Yeah, speaking of two-by-two, everyone in the group (with the exception of me and two of the Lakefront Angels) was running in a nebulous and dangerous cloud of runners! Don't these people realize that whether you're in the front with the pacer or the back, you're running the same damn pace!!! Nope, apparently that wasn't good enough because at every opportunity, someone was creeping up on me, taking up more space. So much so, in fact, that we were yelled at by other runners on the path at least four times in the space of an hour and 45 minutes. It was embarrassing. I know everyone wants to chat and I know that I don't have the best path etiquette all the time, but during the summer the Lakefront path is so crowded, you just have to hold to the rules. Especially at certain places where the path is really narrow.

Strike Three
This was the last straw. I finally snapped. According to my pace buddies, it was actually pretty funny. Still, I felt kinda bad for being so rude, but this dude had it coming. We were coming up on the Diversey aid station, with less than 5 miles to go. The order of the 10:00 pace group looked like this:

Random Girl - Pace Leader
me - Other random girl
Lakefront Angel 1 - Lakefront Angel 2
Douchebag 457

I could hear my friends chatting behind me, and I was focusing on getting to Diversey so I could get some more water. I started hearing a man's voice behind me, but I thought that was weird because my two friends were behind me. Using my amazing powers of peripheral vision, I noticed that, sure enough, Douchebag 457 had weaseled his way between my friend and was now nearly in between me and Other random girl. I tried to keep my cool, figuring we were about two minutes away from Diversey and then I'd relocate myself to the back of the group because I was sick of this shit. Well, Douchebag 457 got so close that he nicked my arm with one of his rings. He apologized and I said "Do you need to be in front me? Because we'll be at Diversey soon..." He said no, and then trailed off a little bit. Eventually, after we'd made our final turnaround, he took off and left us. Pick a faster pace group next time, asshat.

My friend Jane gave me some good advice when we got back. She said to just stay in the back of the group because you get a better breeze back there anyway. I think that's going to have to be my plan from now on. It really is embarrassing, though. I can't tell you how many times I hear people bitch about how rude the CARA runners are with their lack of path etiquette in the summer, but then we go ahead and do the same thing! And of course, not everyone is like this. Sadly, I think the main culprits are in my pace group. I don't like being the bitchy runner and yelling "two by two!" every five minutes, but people just don't seem to get it. There are a lot of runners out on the path on Saturday mornings. It's great because it feels like the whole city is running outside. But I think it's important to not be selfish out there, for everyone from the dudes that are clearly working for Boston, to the newbies hoping to finish. I don't know...just be aware, I guess.

Off my soapbox.

I'm glad I made the decision to get up early for my run today. I didn't go to bed early last night, and I didn't get much sleep either, but the sun was shining in my window and I did some "shower" calculations. Basically, I try to avoid excessive showering.

I know this is crazy talk. Please hear me out before you start judging. I know this may seem hard to believe, but my hair colour is not natural. I love getting it cut and dyed. LOVE IT. However, both of these things cost money. Money is something I currently possess little of. Therefore, I do crazy things to keep my hair colour from fading. Obviously, one of those things is not shampooing my hair too much. But when you run nearly every day, especially in the summer months, you kinda have to! To make a long story short, I figured that if I ran this morning, I could take a shower after my run and not have to worry about washing my hair again until Wednesday at the earliest...possibly Thursday if the weather doesn't get shitty! If I waited until I got home to go for a run, that would definitely mean a shower Tuesday morning and then again Wednesday morning. Decisions, decisions.

The weather was glorious this morning, so my striders went off without a problem. And, many of the members of the S.B.R.C. made an appearance. It's amazing how the presence of an attractive male suddenly cures all bad form habits. Hmmmm...

So don't worry, friends, I am shower fresh. Oh and I had only enough quarters this weekend to do one load of laundry. I'm sure you all can guess which load I did...