Running Chick

I did this to my hand on Sunday afternoon while trying to compact the garbage in a garbage bag. I forgot about the glass jars in there from my refrigerator cleaning extravaganza a few days earlier. I guess a couple of jars banged into each other and broke and my hand had the unfortunate pleasure of running into one of the broken pieces. When it happened, there wasn't a sharp pain or blood or anything that would indicate that this was anything other than a slight scratch. When I looked and noticed how deep it was and saw this white thing that on first glance I thought was bone, I knew it was bad. Josh confirmed it and off to the emergency room we went. Ninety minutes and three stitches later, we were back home. Turns out that white thing I saw was my tendon. I was very fortunate that I didn't sever it. That would have required surgery to repair.

Funny thing is, it never really bled all that much, and didn't really hurt either. I kept on looking at it and thinking that it should hurt, but it never did. Except for the three days afterward. Then it hurt like a bugger. Not in a throbbing kind of way, but a dull constant headache kind of way.

My stitches come out in five days. I think I might let Josh take them out rather than go to the doctor's office. Too bad I can't have him take them out now because I am so over not using my right hand!

Went for a pre-pig-at-the-trough run on Thanksgiving afternoon. 8.5 miles in 1 hour 45 minutes. My splits were okay, mostly in the high 11:00 range. I probably could have picked up the pace a bit, but I was shooting for distance rather than time. I really wanted to push it to 10 miles but I was short on time and had to settle for 8.5. The weather was a balmy 25 degrees and overcast. I didn't get cold until I got down by the waterfront and picked up the wind off of the canal.

I'm finding that my biggest challenge in running in the cold weather is figuring out what to wear so that I don't get overheated. I haven't quite got it down yet, but I'm zeroing in. I ordered a new running/skiing jacket from backcountryoutlet.com which will hopefully cure all my cold weather running problems.

In other news, we received the first snow of the season and the cross country ski trails are officially open. As soon as my hand heals, I'll be on the trails trying to like skate skiing.

So, tonight was the first night in about a million (okay, maybe three weeks) that it wasn't raining when I got home from work. So, I decided to throw on the running shoes and hit the road. I went for a file-mile loop around campus and back to my house. I've been consistently running around the 58-minute mark for five miles since just before my half, and I figured since I had three weeks off there was no way I was going to even come close to that. At the four-mile mark, I noticed that if I hauled ass for an entire mile, I could make 59 minutes. So, that's what I did. For an entire mile, I ran at at 10:0 pace. Granted it was on a slight decline for 75% of the way, but that doesn't diminish the fact that I ran at a 10:00 (!!) pace for an entire mile. Also, another first, Sporttracks says I ran 1.90 miles at a "Running" pace. Usually I run too slow for it to register anything other than walking or jogging. This time, I'm a runner. Woot!

In other news, since I'm feeling to proud of my running accomplishments tonight, I decided to change the title of this blog to something more appropriate. I got tired of the old "Blogs are Stupid" and decided that I'd had this stupid blog long enough that it should have a real less-stupid title. I'm not sure I'll keep this title or not, but I'll keep it for a while and see if it sticks.