Blue Line Club

Got in another Crim route run yesterday.  The idea was to start pushing for time.  I want my 1:30s Crim, and 1:36 or lower to be more exact.  So it's time to push these legs whether they want it or not.  So Jason came by, we walked down to Saginaw and headed out to follow the blue line.  The Crim training group people were out in full force.  I have no idea what they were doing.  Apparently just training to walk slowly up hills or something.  The only people I saw running were all of us rogue runners that were also out on the route on their very special training day and actually running the route the way that you're supposed to (not to go Seinfeld on everyone, but what's the deal with running it backwards?).

They didn't get in our way much.  The walkers bug me a lot less that the run-walkers these days anyway.  I know it's a strategy, and some Jeff Galloway dude advocates it (so the Crim site says) and what not, but I really hate it.  I really hate that it's official Crim Training policy to do it, and they're breeding more people to run and stop dead to walk immediately in front of me.  Sure, you can get better times doing it.  I'm sure I could too.  That's not the point.  Walking is failure.  That is my official position.  Mr. Galloway, I looked you up.  You're officially a legend.  Why are you at the center of this hive of evil?

Look, I'm not going to be a snobby jerk about peoples' times.  I'm not even going to fault you for having to walk during a run because you're in recovery from injury, you have heart conditions, you're older, or you're just trying to get back into shape and you're exhausted (or whatever).  I get it, you have to stop for your own good.  When it become your actual race strategy, I have a problem.  I don't like it.  I hate you.  You're cheaters, and your times are fraudulent.  I want to start a race where there are men and women on the course dressed as Tusken Raiders directed to paintball the crap out of anyone seen walking.  Anyone with paint on them at the finish is DQ'd (and not the good kind where you get a Blizzard).  I may do just that, just so I can do a run without one of them leap-frogging me for miles.

Anyway, back to our Crim run.  We made a good first mile pace, despite stopping for traffic a few times, and I was ready to take off.  It wasn't meant to be though.  My friend had a tight thigh and a couple other issues, and instead of going faster we held steady.  After being stopped at a light for a while, we slowed down, and eventually (for a change) it was me dragging him along and being the good running friend for once.  We had to take a detour to stop chasing a dog away from its owner down the sidewalk and pissing them off, and another one for a loose dog.  Leashes are really hard to find and use, I guess.  Then after the Bradleys we did a water stop, and then headed on for the rest of the route.

We did make it all running, but it was slow.  I knew it was slow when I was actually anxious to hit a dead sprint with over a mile to go thinking "I can sprint the rest of it."  Jason cut me loose at Saginaw and I busted down the street through the early week Back to the Bricks (an over-sized car show that takes us over for a week and is pretty awesome) crowd watching classic cars going by.

I realized I was bleeding through my new white Warrior Dash shirt (nipple skin failure).  Then I had to chuckle a bit.  I am a really big guy, bleeding from the chest, and running down the street of one of the higher crime cities around.  Hopefully I didn't scare anybody away.  I doubt it.  That would take much more blood, and I didn't even have enough going to breastfeed a baby vampire.

The final time (with all the stopping for lights included) put us at 11 minute miles.  Oh well, it's a throw-away.  Jason can and will do better, and he's the one that ran at the pace I want last year.  There's no way he got worse running 3 times a week instead of 2.  He had a bad day, and next time he'll push me.  If not, I'll drag him with, I'll add running days, or whatever it takes.  I need to get this show on the road.  I'm tired of slacking off.

With that out of the way, on a personal note we're about 2 weeks from the wedding now.  One thing we've learned is that we both suck at bachelor/bachelorette events.  None of my people can actually get together for anything because of work schedules, previous plans, or whatever.  Her big tubing thing this weekend is down to something like her, her maid of honor, the MOH's sister, and some other girl she barely knows.  I can't even get guys together with promises of baseball and monkeys riding dogs herding sheep, so we just fail, I guess.  She is currently lobbying the other girls to allow men, and I'm thinking we can go do that and come home and she can go to baseball and weird animal combinations instead.

Last night after the run, I realized I should probably finally get food (because I can't survive on a nature valley bar and a small bag of veggie straws).  I figured I'd wait for her to get home in case she was hungry, and it was a good call.  She was stressed, and hungry.  So we went to the Bee's and got her a beer and got us both some food.  I broke my no weekly beer rule and got a Summer Shandy to join her in a gesture of stress relieving solidarity, I suppose. 

I am extremely fortunate to have a woman whose problems can be solved by simple things like seeing me and/or having a beer (and the like).  It's a mutual thing, too.  The second I see her after a bad day, half the stress is gone immediately.  We talked about that, and how we should just forget the bachelor/bachelorette stuff, forget everyone else, and go do something together.  Honestly, she's the most fun person I know anyway.  I guess that's just another reason I know that I'm marrying the right person.