The First Run of the New Year

{Snow in Michigan}

December 17-December 29, 2012: A HOLIDAY BLUR!

Week of December 30, 2012:

Sunday: Walk around my sister’s neighborhood (two loops in the cold!)

Monday: Travel (lots of walking, lugging, huffing, and puffing)

Tuesday: Bike commute to work

Wednesday: Bike commute to work and HEB

Thursday: Short run! (20:13, y’all)

Friday: Bike ride commute + unpleasant encounter with negligent driver

Woo-hoo, I’m back in Texas!  It’s been a hard week, trying to adjust to being back at work and back in my regularly scheduled life.  I feel like today I might be hitting my stride again, though, which is good because I am (EEK!) giving a talk to the entire department next week.  So, um, hi, welcome back, time to be brilliant, okay, darling?

I didn’t run much during my vacation, which is unfortunate.  I was struck down twice by illness: once by a cold before I left Texas and then again by a stomach bug that made its way through my family and me.  I did squeeze in one run on Christmas Eve Day, a 30-minute jobber around my brother’s neighborhood.  It was nice to get out of the house by myself—I can get start to feel a bit squeezed by all the family time, and it’s important for me to reclaim my independence with a good run.

Last night I went out on my first run of the new year, and it was really nice.  I hadn’t run here in Texas in almost three weeks, which sounds crazy!  It felt wonderful to be back on my old, well-worn running route, the short one I usually choose for runs in the 20-25 minute range.  Tonight, however, while biking home through the same neighborhood, I had an unfortunate encounter with a driver who used safety as an excuse to be rude because she wasn’t paying any attention to the sidewalk traffic.  I will tell you more about this tomorrow, and you can decide if you think I am in the wrong to feel angry at drivers who yell at me out their window as they speed off onto University Drive.  Safety in Texas is a funny thing, as there are so many drivers who do illegal, unsafe, or unfair things: speed through yellow lights (and by “speed,” I mean slam on the gas to fly through a yellow or red light), take a left turn (straight into pedestrian traffic) when it is clearly the pedestrian’s turn to cross the street, or take a right turn when I’ve been waiting for my turn to cross the road.  I actually expect Texas drivers to do the wrong thing, thus putting me in danger.  So it’s kind of hard for me to take them seriously when they are yelling at me about safety and I was clearly in no danger because I expect them to do stupid shit.

Oof.  I’m getting ahead of myself here.  Tomorrow: full story, I promise.

Happy weekend, everyone.  It’s so nice to be back!

PS  Did you see S.’s interview on why she runs?  More inspiration to lace up those sneakers this winter :-)