Running! More or less...

I have two friends running marathons this weekend.  Well, one is running the Boston on Monday, so I guess that qualifies as "next week".  Nevertheless, what an amazing accomplishment.

This morning, late in the hour, I walked outside and noticed what an incredible day it was!!  It was, maybe, 60 degrees outside, NO WIND, (Kansans will hearken to my enthusiasm), and just a sunny morn full of flowers and blooming trees.  Awesome.

I immediately went back inside to scribble a note and a map for that Spouse o' Mine (more on this later...), to let him know that I was taking a 7.5 mile walk/run through these Flint Hills.  ETA: hopefully sooner than 2 hours, but, to give me a little wiggle room on that - don't call 911 at 2:01 hours.

And off I went!  I walk down the road past Wabaunsee City limits, (tongue-in-cheek, since: A) we are no city, and B) there are no limits, no laws, that I can discern, in this Kansas hamlet-village-whatever, before I commence my runs.  Kind of a warm up, so I tell myself, but it's more of an "OK, humans are gone, now I can run, walk, side-step, or do cartwheels, and sing, and no one but the heifers will see or hear."

When I hit the Wabaunsee City limits, I took off running, and made it a goal for the first 2 miles to run "2 electric poles" and walk "1 electric pole".  This worked just dandy.  Then I turned the corner, where there are no poles, and I gave myself the holiday of "running declines, walking inclines."  That worked, too.  Yay for the Flint Hills!  I said good morning to the two fellows felling trees and putting them in the chopper, (allthewhile thinking that this could be a horrible mystery novel written by someone.  Besides me.  Maybe I will contact Stephen King.)  Then I turned a corner, ran up an incline ( I know, I know), and leveled out at a pig farm.  The farmer was out, and I called out a neighborly "Yoo-hoo!"  No reaction.  Maybe he is deaf, I thought.  I got right up to him (and the pigs), and waved and hollered (I RARELY holler, mind you) GOOD MORNING!  No response.  So I took this as an opportunity to head on down my next decline at a pretty good pace (again, a Stephen King novel about pigs rose into my head), and I continued that pace till I got to the Wabaunsee Cemetery.  That is my point of return in my "out & back".

On my "back" route, I had to stop. Not once, not twice, NOT THRICE, for shoe issues.  I got small stones (sand?  Princess & the Pea type, I suspect) in my shoe.  That was twice.  But to stop, dump shoe, allthewhile balancing in a pose to keep one's feet from touching MORE stones in sock feet (Yay yoga!), and then all the neurotic mental trouble started:  I MUST have both shoes laced EXACTLY the same tension.  EXACTLY.
That in itself was...three stops?

And then I accidentally flushed a quail from her place of residence.  And after she flew out, I halted to listen to the little quail babies peep-peep-peeping in the brush.

Then there was the problem of my new iPod.  Daughter #2 was kind enough to download some music for my runs: 3 songs.  After listening to these 3 songs three times on my "out" part of the run, I opted to deposit my iPod in some brush along the way, to b picked up on my "-and back" part of my trek.

On my way back I stopped to laugh w/ the guys felling trees about their blocking my way (because, you see, at this point it was a decline, and I had to run!  But there was a tree in the road.)

Ok.  Ok.  My 7.5 miles took exactly 2 hours.  Exactly.  (I forgot to mention the pulling-up to a walk when the nasty neighbor dogs started running at me in the road...and also stopping by our mailbox to collect the mail and to chat w/ our rural mailman, Dave...)

Apparently, my point in writing this is about as pointless as this morning's glorious walk/run.  I have two friends running 26 miles this weekend, and a son whose 10K makes my 7.5 miles look like...
 ...a crawl. 

But!  I was out there, and I did it.