What Sunday was mainly notable for, was being cold. As luck would have it, our forthcoming production of The Tempest clashes with the week that the Royal Shakespeare Company are judging the Open Stages productions for their Amateur Dramatics jamboree. They said we could send them a DVD of our play, which for some reason we agreed to do. And who wouldn't think that 20 May would be a good time of year to perform outside. We didn't know it was going to be bitterly cold, did we? Before the filming, I went into town to pick up some hair extensions, and the girl in Claire's Accessories asked if I'd had a good day. I said "It's just about to get better. I'm going to put a silver cat suit on and prance around Central Park". She said "Oh, that'll be fun" without batting an eyelid.
The filming took much longer than anyone thought, we got there at 11, and by 3 we had two injured dancers, one of whom had to go to hospital. We didn't finish till half 6. I sort of felt that we ought to wait for everyone to have finished, although apparently no one else did, so it was just me, the remaining actors and the usual suspects among the Mask people who put away the props.
I felt it best to go home and properly warm up before running because surely, starting exercise while cold is stupid (witness 2 injured dancers). And since I skipped lunch (not deliberately) I also thought having a bowl of pasta would be a good idea. I cooked up a yummy pasta sauce, and deliberately waited a while for some digestion to happen. I was wondering about doing another back-to-back run at midnight, but then remembered a rather brilliant and yet unlikely plan I'd hatched for Monday. I said (I don't know why) that I'd get the car back at 8 am. The drop-off place was Shrewsbury Avenue, downtown, which has got to be about 3 miles away. So, how about that I drop off a bag of clothes at the office, drive the car downtown, already in my running things, and run back?
While I was digesting the pasta, I mapped out the route on Runkeeper. It was only just shy, so a quick detour up the embankment should take it up to 5k. And I fancied that this was more what Sal's website advice had been getting at when she said "try doing one run in the morning and the following one in the evening to space them out a bit" (not one at 11:30pm and one at 12am). Then I went for my Sunday run at about 10. The pasta hadn't digested, even though it seemed hours ago. I was running really slowly, and then my route disintegrated. For some reason, although I did the usual local route, it didn't seem to add up to the same distance. I had to add going around the park to it, although I felt like I'd spent enough time in the park already. I wrote on the Runkeeper comment "When will this month be over?" and, as it got posted onto Facebook, Sal replied "Soon - and then you'll miss it".
However, Monday morning, weirdly, seemed to work. I mean, I was late setting off, and didn't set out until about 8:15, but grumpy Alan on the front desk agreed to look after my bags for me, and even smiled and everything. I had a moment where I thought I'd left my phone at home, and realised I couldn't even go back and get it because I'd just left my housekeys in my bag at work. Then I found I'd already put my phone into my jacket pocket. The panic was because I'm logging the runs with Runkeeper on my phone (as well as the Garmin). Incidentally, it was pointed out to me today by Rich, who really needs a nickname as there are a couple of other possible Rich's about, so could be Poetry Rich, that my blog is sadly deficient in maps. So, if you ever need to follow my route, please be aware that I have added a link at the top right corner (right under the link that says SPONSOR ME) where you can find my route maps. From Runkeeper. You can thus also check that I have done a run every day in May.
The car drop off was a cinch, and as I left I realised that Chris lives near there, and also arrives at work at a similar sort of time to me (late). So I rang her, and she was just leaving her house. She joined my on her bike, and cycled a good part of the way with me, before she professed to being freezing. As I was suffering the reverse (even though I appreciated it was chilly, the run was warming me up nicely) I asked her to take my jacket into work, so that was an added bonus. She told me that she'd met up with Sal at the weekend, who misses us. I miss her too. So does Babs, I can tell.
Finishing the run before work was a novelty! It meant I had the rest of the day free, and got to have lunch with Heather, which was great because I hadn't seen her for so long. And then had a long, relaxing evening stretching to enjoy myself, catch up on some tellie on iplayer, and tidy up a bit. Unfortunately, what actually happened was that I fell asleep on the sofa for two and a half hours. This is what happens when you overdo it.
No comments:
Post a Comment