And I Ran….I Ran So Far Away….

(don't know the song I've cleverly referenced?)

So, we have breaking news!
I ran last night. And nothing was even chasing me.

Raff is training for the Warrior Dash. I think he’s nuts but anyway.... After some drunken Facebook messaging last Friday night, he told me I should come running with him. And those four glasses of wine in me made that sound like a pretty good idea.

Oh, but then came Wednesday. Uh oh.  I got home, changed into my sweats and 6:30pm came. No Raff. I told Todd, “Maybe he forgot!!” Nope. At 6:35, Raff was at the door, breathing heavy and bouncing around.

“YA READY?!”

Sigh. I guess.

There were a few things on my side. One, Raff has only been training for two weeks. He’s not a regular runner. Two, he decided for this run he needed to wear two pound weights on each ankle. Which slowed him down. Thank gawd.

He kept insisting that we go at my pace, but Raff is 6’4” so three of my strides is just one of his. Inevitably, he was always ahead of me. And that was just fine. Then he couldn’t see me turning red and huffing and puffing.

For a first time runner, I think I did damn good. We ran two blocks, then walked a block. Then ran one more block (okay, half a block – it was a long block!) then walked. Then ran. Then walked. We both have asthma so as soon as one of us started whistling and wheezing, we’d slow down to a walk.

I was home 30 minutes later. I felt overheated and dizzy, but otherwise okay. I’d walked the last four blocks or so, so my heart rate was slowly coming down. I laid on the floor and stretched and breathed, then took a cool shower to get my body temperature down.

And then the coughing started. Oh, geez, the coughing. It was deep and wet and it made my chest hurt. And it kept up all evening. Along with the bouts of sneezing that had my eyes so watery I couldn’t see and that was so loud that the guys Todd was Skyping with passed along their sympathy.

But things calmed down for the most part around 10pm, so Todd and I went to bed. I laid out my cough drop and earplugs, had my glass of water, inhaler and tissues beside my bed, and my spare pillow already propped against the headboard and in place so I could just skootch up in the middle of the night if I started coughing and needed to sit up (this is my standard nightly routine. It’s very sad).

Todd and I did our nightly download and he made me laugh so hard I started coughing again. He said, “You know, it will take a while for your lungs to get used to running, but they’ll get better.”

I said, “Oh. I’m not doing this again. Silly man…..”

However.

Wonder of wonders, I did not wake up once at all last night. I never looked at the clock, I didn’t cough at all, I didn’t sneeze. My cough drop was unopened at 6am this morning when my alarm lit up.

Amazing!

And today I feel pretty damn good. I have a couple of sore places, but I was betting with Todd last night that I wouldn’t be able to walk today. Not so! I’m trying to move a lot today and will stretch really well tonight (maybe even take a soakie) and then we’ll see how I’m doing tomorrow.

Is this the start of a new Raechelle?

And did I mention that, with the exception of a bite of cake Saturday night, I have not had any pastries or desserts since…uh…March 1st, I think. I had some “power bars” at ECCC for lunch, and one of those was coated in chocolate, or probably, fake chocolate, but that’s about it. Look at me, sticking to a plan! Without even realizing it!! CB even invited me to join her for lunch at Azteca yesterday, and I passed. I walked down to my little café and had a salad. So, there.

Maybe I should start up Well Past Voluptuous again?

**********

Annoyance of the day: people who sing in the bathroom.
I realize there are good acoustics in there, but it’s just weird.