Two Runs in as Many Days :)

Check it out, dudes - 2 runs in 2 days, with a total of 8.5 or so miles covered. Not bad, if I do say so myself...

After the traditional Christmas Eve dinner of shrimp and cinnamon rolls with our friends the Painters, my family and I headed to midnight Mass (which used to actually be at midnight). In an unexpected turn of events, I ran into some old friends from high school whom I look up to. Literally.

They're much taller than I am. Get it?

One of them has been getting into running the past few years and rather than just answer my "how do you get motivated to run?" question decided he'd make me run way more than I wanted to, so we set a running date for the day after Christmas. He met me at my parents' place at 9am the morning of the 26th, at which point we did a little stretching and made our way down to Redondo Beach pier and then to Hermosa. There and back, including the walking parts, ended up being about 7 miles all together. The running parts totaled approximately 1:09 and we were gone about 2 hours (we may have taken a bit of a chatting break at the end of Hermosa pier, which is much longer than it looks).

According to Death (one of Mike's many nicknames, and one particularly appropriate considering what he put me through yesterday), the key to running is smiling. A lot. He told me most of the time we were running that I just wasn't smiling enough. Apparently I also need to find some woods to run through and trails to run on, where there are no people and lots of nature. Not surprising coming from a kid who once told me of an ambition to run a bunch of people over with a lawnmower after spending 5 hours walking through crowds after World Youth Day. Long story.

The aforementioned "Death" aka Mike Fend.

Not sure I'm entirely convinced by his theories, but I do plan to visit Colorado sometime to visit and I'm sure he'll make me run on at least one of these awesome trails and maybe then I'll change my mind. We shall see.

After our run, I squeezed in a quick lunch with another high school friend and hurried off to the airport and caught a plane to Nashville via Salt Lake City. I planned to wake up and go running again this morning where it was colder, but when I got up it was almost 50 degrees so I had to postpone. I spent the day with one of my old roommates from college since the friend I'm actually here to visit has not yet returned from Christmas with her family (you'll see and hear more about her soon, I'm certain, as I will force her to run with me while I'm here) and then, once I got home, it was finally cold!

I figured I could either try to get myself to wake up early enough for it to still be cold enough in the morning or I could go for a little nighttime jog... so I chose the latter. The neighborhood seemed pretty safe and I hadn't really done anything healthy all day (guac & tacos for lunch, then mini corn dogs and popcorn and Junior Mints for dinner at the movie - not good choices for running), so I geared up in my UnderArmour cold gear and got ready to head out.

Love me my cold running gear!!

The first 2/3 of my run was wonderful! I cannot tell you how much I miss running in the cold. I really dislike being hot, so running in 30 degree weather (or less) is as good as it gets, cuz no matter how hot you get, you're still cold. It's pretty much the greatest. I was just thinking over and over again how awesome it was and how it would be nice to live somewhere cold, but then how much of a pain it would be to move again, etc., and then the mini corn dogs and popcorn and Junior Mints hit me. Not good choices for before running, in case you were curious. I started feeling pretty bad so I stopped running after 16 minutes and walked the rest of the way. All said and done, I probably only ran/walked 1.6 miles, but - as always - better than nothing, right? And it was nice and cold!

Can't wait for some more running in the cold with Stephie, and maybe her former-Army boyfriend who has apparently decided it's his new mission to whip me into shape. In 5 days. Good luck, my friend...