Breaking Stride

By some miracle, I did not suffer from too much post-birthday lag on this morning's run. It's not that I'm such a party animal, it's that the annual Appetizer Dinner for my birthday is not the greatest running fuel! (However, it is delicious.) It is the greatest for telling Aaron last night, "I cannot wait for tomorrow when I take care of business, go to run, and take a nap." He thought that sounded like a great plan. You can assume everything happened minus the nap!

It was windy out there this morning, and that's never fun in any weather. I do like cold weather, such as this morning's 27, but I do not like when the cold air is slapping me in the face. Fortunately, it didn't take too long before I was more than warm enough to notice the impending frost bite. (Another year, a little more dramatic.)

I had something to do before being able to run this morning that made it so I started running a good hour and a half after I usually do. That equated to having to find a place to use the restroom along the route. I thought of all of the porta potties I've passed on runs and how many times I've wondered if those who have to stop are annoyed or thankful. Now that I've broken stride to utilize facilities, my money's on 'thankful.' What a porta potty runner probably doesn't experience is the number of people staring while on the way to the relief spot because the runner (today, that's yours truly) still has bells on the ol' shoes which seems to attract some attention.

They go on for the Jingle Bell Run, and they don't come off
until after Christmas. Those are the rules. And, they're awesome.

This jingled-up runner also found some scratch today:

One in the street, one in a drive-thru. Outstanding!

Overall, the run was uneventful other than I didn't map it before going, so I really didn't know the distance until getting home to map it. It turned out to be 4.3 miles complete with good hills and a profitable drive-thru. That's a pretty good outing post-birthday goodness!

I'm looking forward to this duo of Rest Days in front of me, though, I'm not going to lie! This is a tough time of year to stay motivated, so I plan to soak all I can out of the spirit of tomorrow's day! I'll see you then!