frozen snot and limp celery that needs to settle

“Alright, let’s do this,” Wendy says as we walk out of my house, with our Keep Cups full of coffee. The night before, we decided we wanted to bring 2019 in with a bang, and obviously, the only way to do that is to drive 90 miles for repeats on Mount Scott with high winds and a real feel of 8˚. She wanted to go for a minimum of 20 miles, but that was about four glasses of wine in and before she saw the forecast. Fortunately, I pulled the “I don’t want to pay for another ultra and not be able to run it, so I’m sticking to my scheduled 12 miles” card - because that’s totally a card, right? Anyway, I start rummaging through my bag and announce that despite my food blogging life, I don’t really have any post-run food for the drive home, but I do have some celery, half a container of blackberries, and a sad orange that might not still be good because I needed part of the peel. I did have the wherewithal to pack a hydroflask full of hot water and grab some tea bags, so we’d have something to help warm us up when we’re done. But let me back up a little bit….

holy bananas!

baby, it’s cold outside

The last quarter of 2018 was nothing short of pure madness as I was trying to get Run Yoga Eat live, transition out of my management position, and transition my successor in. It ended with a much needed vacation in South Carolina, where I think I drank literally all the wine. Sorry, South Carolinians… it’s been a rough year. Anyway, all of this led to less running and more laptop/photographing/wine/instagramming/wine/website designing/wine - you get the idea. Wendy, has been in a similar “work your ass off and drink wine when you can” routine, so needless to say, we expected this run to hurt. Totally fine with that. We did not, however, expect to be THAT FUCKING COLD! Between bouts of actual conversation, was the occasional:

“My ass is so cold!” (Wendy)
“I can no longer feel my left hand.” (Wendy)
“The snot that is pouring out of my nose will soon be frozen to my face. I’m sorry about that.” (me)
“Can you hold my water bottle? My stomach keeps getting air.” (Wendy)
“My hips, butt, and quads are on fire cold, but my hamstrings, shins, and calves are fine. What a weird distribution of heat I have going on?!” (me)

wendy (left) me (right)

wendy looks crazy and i look like i could use another ponytail holder

We power hiked it up as fast as we could with our sad, unused climbing legs and then took a nice, chill run down, rinse and repeat for twelve miles. Aside from the cold, it didn’t feel terribly painful, except for the asthma kicking in and the few times that I dropped my water bottle and had to squat down to fetch it, but that’s more from this bootcamp class we took two days ago than the run. It hurt badly enough, though, that I said if it fell again, I was just leaving it. When we finished the run, I made us some hot tea in her car, as she turned all climate control options to full blast hot. We quickly thawed out just enough to realize how hungry we were, and we laughed as I pulled the flimsy celery out of the bag. None of this is interesting until I get to the part where I glance over and see her trying to make sure she got every possible bite from her stalk without getting the brown ends in her mouth, and I mentioned that we had plenty more. “Okay, cool,” she says. And with no intention of being funny, continues “I’m going to let this one settle first” as if I’d just offered her a second round of Christmas dinner or something. I lost it, and we shivered and giggled all the way home.

but i had toe socks and hot tea

we can call that prepared

After a 45 minute hot bath - during which I inhaled some Hoppin’ John and more hot tea - I finally felt like my bones had thawed, and just tried to keep moving until time for hot yoga. That room felt so good, but my practice was a laughable shit show. My legs were tight, my shoulders sore, my toenails hurt, and I’m sure I could keep going. It’s funny how you can be a runner for years and then have those moments where you feel brand new again. I kind of love that. Day one down, and I’m looking forward to day two.

hot bath, hot tea, & hot hoppin’ john

and i don’t even care that it’s gross to have food in the bathroom

I can’t recall if I said this anywhere, but my intention with this segment isn’t to create something flawless. I’m not worrying about photo quality or how wordy or not wordy I am. This space will be raw and candid and unedited. It will be what it is, and I’ll choose to be okay with that. In any case, thank you for coming along.

Stay tuned…