Friday, November 21, 2008

Simple Pleasures

We've had very mild temperatures lately. Mild as in....I'm STILL WEARING SHORTS. Long sleeves, but shorts nonetheless.

Lately, things have been going really well. I woke up early this morning, had my morning cup of coffee (ok...today I had TWO cups) and felt a relief from the stress that we had been going through.

Do you know that feeling when stress is going away slowly, then one day you wake up and you think "it's all good"?

That's how I woke up.

All all my morning duties were finished, I got set to run. I put on my shorts, long sleeve shirt...then at the last minute opted to pack a hat. I don't know why I did that, but I did.

Again, it was very mild (50F), and very sunny. Unfortunately with the next storm moving into the mountains, it was also an unexpectedly very windy. The wind was SO cold. Out of the north, it was an artic wind. I laughed for a second wondering how that happens.

How can it be so beautiful when the wind stops; yet, brutally cold when it picks up.

I was glad I packed my hat. For the whole run, I was cold. I tried to run into the valley where I knew it would be colder because the trees would block the sun, but there wouldn't be much wind. Today, that wasn't the case. The wind went howling through the valley, and I opted to return to the top where I could at least have the sun on my face.

It was a meditative run. More and more often, my runs are becoming like that. I've found my space where my body can hit and maintain the right heart rate without me thinking about it.

When I head home, I realized how good my training has been going and how great I've been feeling. Was it frustrating at the begining? YOU BETCHA, but I've now been in Phase 1 training since the begining of October. My progress is consistent. (Although it took a good 6 weeks before I saw any consistent improvement. It was rather erratic at first).

I got home and the house felt warm. I took a hot shower, hoping my ears would stop hurting.

Then came the best part of my day. I sat down with a can of coke and Mr. Nuk and I shared a bag of peanut m&ms.