I did my first double-digit miles run of the year this past Saturday. 10 miles (plus the cool-down walk). It was pretty good, even though the weather was not.
I always get nervous before these long runs. It's worse when the weather is shaky. There are so many unknowns and the last thing I want is to be stuck somewhere miles from home without a phone and not knowing what I may encounter. Of course, that's part of the sport of it too! :)
Anyway, Saturday morning was fairly warm - lower 50s - but it was raining, and as that subsided the winds began to pick up as the temperature dropped. Fun stuff.
I finally decided to go with shorts, two shirts and my light jacket. Jane was doing 4 miles and she went with long pants. It seemed to work for both of us. We procrastinated until just after noon.
We had to take the Lower Huntington to Bluffton Road route due to flooding along the river. It's great going TO Foster Park, but it's all uphill coming back - and today it was also against the wind! Ugh. Jane's turnaround was at The Stand, and I chugged along to Foster. There were only occasional sprinkles, and once inside the park I was pretty well protected from the wind except one little stretch along Old Mill. So I did two loops around Foster. That way I wouldn't have to try to find some random miles at the end. I only saw one other person the whole time! A youngish woman. We both shrugged in our bewilderment that no one else was out. Apparently some people take those wind advisories serious.
For some odd reason I felt really good on this run. I mostly stayed around a 10:30 pace, but it was honestly difficult to not go faster. That is... until I headed back down Bluffton Road. The wind was equal to or greater than the last double-digit run I did: the Monumental Marathon. There were a couple times where a gust actually knocked me out of rhythm. At one point I just laughed because there was really nothing else I could do but put my head down and keep moving my feet.
When I turned the corner onto Lower Huntington though... the last mile... with the wind at my back..... Eweee baby, I sailed home! I was literally trying not to go any faster but I think I finished at a 9-minute/mile pace. I'd have been happy if it wasn't a long run, that's supposed to be slower. Still, I was plenty pleased it went so well. Just a couple weeks ago I wasn't sure I would ever even do double digits this year.
Afterward we had just enough time to stretch, shower, supper, and get ready to work a concert that night. Kiss the Sky, the RE-Experience was playing at the Baker Street Centre. I thought it might be our first time bartending, but ended up we were both at the front ticket counter as usual.
For some reason it was a fairly small crowd (70-ish), and the evening started a bit slow. There was a stripped down stage setup (not a Marshall in sight!), and I think people were a bit thrown. Finally "Jimi", aka Jimy Bleu, explained they were covering the era when 'The Experience' was first starting out, and it made sense.
And... at some point it was like somebody threw a switch! The audience came alive and the band exploded (was the chicken or the egg first?). Not only did these guys dress the part (all of them), but Jimi/Jimy wailed that left-handed strat like nobody's business! He played with his teeth, behind his back, all the way to humping it down to feedback on the last song before the encore! It ended up being a fun night and I think everyone went home happy.
So, that was Saturday. It was a good day. Sunday we went to Canvas for church, and it made for an all-around good weekend. :)
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