With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams...

10K route again to the light & back. Had a little run in with a mean old dog and his super cranky owner. Dog got a shot of pepper spray. Wish it could have been the owner instead.

Nice to run in the sunshine on the holiday.

Up again with the dark, cold sky. Beautiful stars, but 29-30 degrees. Not the 64 I enjoyed last week.

I did enjoy the mess out of zumba  after work.  I didn't know it was legal to have that much fun in a band room :-)

Nu running today- this morning was mini-me's birthday and MR and I surprised her at seminary with cupcakes, yoo-hoos, and a dozen roses.

The zumba class was amazing- as usual.  I'm happy I'm enjoying some cross training and cross strengthening.  It's been cold this week and having an indoor fun workout group is really nice.

Barely above freezing, but still beautiful to be out and see such a beautiful dawn at the end of my run.  

The weather warmed up to 44 today, but the wind picked up too.  Lucky for me, 90 percent of my run home was right into the blustery cold wind.  I had a choice to treadmill or run outside, and I don't regret my choice at all.  Enjoyed the last hour of daylight and a warm soup dinner with grilled cheese sammich when I got home.  Some days the world is good and right.

Twenty one degrees outside this morning.  Coldest morning all season.  I managed to warm up and have a good run- even got extra warm at one point, but not hot enough to consider taking off a layer.

The cat in the ditch was waiting for me again- I've been seeing his eyes reflect in my headlamp the last couple of mornings I've been out.  He was in the bushes this morning when I went out and on the other side of the street when I came back....unless there's more than one.  

Beautiful sky this morning- as I ran north east, 1/3 of the sky was high clouds that were painted a dark pink/red.  It was just amazing and breath-taking to see.  The dead opossum on the side the road was still hanging out and giving me a thumbs up (paws up) as I ran by too.

Went out on a new route today because I couldn't stand the thought of running the same route again.  I figured if I went out too far, I could just call MR to come pick me up after I'd met my goal.  I wanted to run between 16 and 18 miles.  

I listened to podcasts on how stuff works and learned all kinds of useless trivia that made the hours pass by before I knew it.  I had to stretch at mile 9, then I had MR meet me with water and took a little break at mile 13.  At mile 15, I was feeling out of it and stopped for a gu, water, and a stretch.  18 miles was a long way for me to go- it's been more than a year since I've run so far and my legs were tired and worn out, but it felt good to get the miles in.  I feel confident I'll be able to do the run next month.

My miles ended up being perfect for the route I took.  It was exactly 18 miles to the entrance to my neighborhood.  Couldn't have planned it better if I'd tried.  I saw the white turkey again- it seems to live in a fenced in area in the yard of the burned down house.  I'm guessing someone nearby is taking care of it.  There were 3 opossum on the roadside at various stages of decay, and something that could have been a  fox or dog. 

Wyatt said she'd be ready to run again next week, so I hope I get a chance to run with her a while.