The Super Hero Inside

Happy Pi Day! That's all I've got on that.

Can I just say that starting a run when it's 30 degrees is oh-so-very different from starting one when it's 61 degrees?! I was only a half mile into it today when I realized, odds are, it won't reach 61 degrees by the time I finish my Half next month! However, if it is that warm toward the end, at least I'll be more conditioned for it! The warm Winter might ultimately work to my personal advantage ...

The warm weather is also continuing to bring about lovely sights along my routes. This for instance:

I saw this amidst the slew of daffodils! In
fact, there were three of them. So pretty!

AND, there was another lovely sight. It was just lovely for an entirely different reason:

Upper third of picture, but at the bottom of
the upper third toward the middle. Hello, Abe!

Yup, this was a good morning. This is a route that has become pretty routine to me even though used to kill me ... it incorporates stretches of my very first 3-mile route where I would walk up every hill. To those hills, I now say Take That!

It was on one of the hills where I was coming head-to-head with a bicyclist who was also on the sidewalk. It was clear he was going to move over as far as he could for me, so I was very pleased to also move into the grass (instead of being put out that I was forced there). While we passed each other, I thought to myself, "Running in to each other would have sucked." Then I pictured what that would look like. Then I pictured somehow getting a picture of it (I have a camera after all ...). Then I pictured scrapbooking that picture and putting "BAM!" "SMACK!" "POW!" symbols around it a la Batman TV series.

THEN, I kid you not, about a quarter mile later, I ran by a man at a bus stop wearing a jacket with such exclamations smattered all over it! I remember seeing "SPLAT!" on there amidst the hundreds of words!! I almost stopped and asked if I could take a picture of it, but when I said, "Good morning," as I passed, he merely grunted, so I thought I should just go on.

And, go on I did with the Batman theme going through my head for the next mile and a half. (That's a long time to have "Da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na, Da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na, BATMAN!" going through your head if you ever wondered. But, it was still fun because it made me feel a little super-hero-ish.)

So, I finished up, and I was rather warm. And, smelly. It was then when I thought about a recent post where I relayed the "Running Is Beautiful" entry from the I <3 To Run Facebook page ... I know the "beautiful" part was not in reference to what is actually visible, but it made me giggle given not only how sweaty-messed-up I knew I was, but also because I was wearing the most ugly shirt I've ever received from a run:

I tried to be nice about this shirt when I first
picked it up, but I'm on to calling it what it
is. UGLY. Now, it's my go-to sacrificial
shirt because running will eventually put
an end to its ugly existence.

Sweaty, smelly, messed up WHO CARES because I ROCKED THAT ONE. (Yay, me!) There is a freedom to it all, that is for sure! I'll see you after a few more miles of freedom tomorrow!