Body Glide is Your Friend

I had a little run with my running group this morning and it was good. It’s true, because Twitter says so.

I decided to run with my old group (the slower one) because the speedy people in my new group scare me with their quickness. I didn’t want to feel pressured to keep up because then I burn out. When I burn out, I give up and that’s the last thing I needed during 18 miles. I brought my headphones because I was fully prepared for no one to talk to me and to hate the run. I even wore bright colors so if I got left behind, maybe someone would notice I wasn’t there.

I got up at 3am to meet my group by 4am. Well, not only did people notice I’ve been missing from the group for the past month, all the pace leaders also remembered my name. That’s crazy-talk since they called me “Heather” for about 3 weeks.

We ran 6 miles and then came back to the start to pick up the people that were “only” doing 12 miles. The bathrooms were still locked at Cady Way Park and mother nature was calling, so I peed behind a mini-van. I waited until the next rest stop to use a real bathroom, but that was locked too. So, at mile 10, I did something real bad in someone’s yard. And it was glorious.

For the last 12 miles, I trailed behind the rest of the group and ran with the pace leader, Shannon, and two other people. I’ve never run with Shannon in the group before and man, I really like her in general. She’s awesome to talk to, plus I could keep her pace and she doesn’t leave anyone behind. No need for the headphones I brought!

For the last 4 miles, we took more walk breaks than usual because the guy running with us was getting calf cramps. At the end of the run, everyone’s Garmin said 18 miles, but mine was at 17.75. Since this was a new personal distance record for me and I am anal in ways you would never believe, I wanted to run another quarter mile to see the 18 on my Garmin.

So Shannon ran the last quarter mile with me so I didn’t have to run it alone. How cool is that? I told her she didn’t have to and she’s like, “no, we are doing this.” So, she ran 18.30 miles according to her Garmin just to make me happy. Later in the day, she even wrote me a personal email to see how my recovery was going.

When I got home I took my very first ice bath.

Instead of buying ice, my cheap ass just used the stuff from the freezer.

I could have used more ice. It was definitely cold, but I think I could have tolerated more. So I guess I’ll have to stop being a Cheapy McCheapertons a buy some ice next time.

After the ice bath, things started to hurt. I’ve never had a need for Body Glide before, but I’ve been using it just in case. Man, did I miss some crucial areas today. My inner thighs are the worst, but I’ll spare you that picture. Then I found this gem on my back.

I didn’t even notice that one until the shower water hit it and crap, it stings. (Not easy taking a picture of your own back, by the way.) I also got some chaffing on my top of my feet.

Maybe someone can just dip me in a vat of Body Glide.

So, I’m a big ole chaffy mess right now but I felt good during the whole run. Funny how and 18 miler can go better than a 12 miler the weekend before. I ended up with an 11: 34 pace including all our walk breaks and I’m totally happy with that. Especially since it was 82 degrees out when we started and 94 degrees when we finished.