The last two weeks also brought the challenge of being patient, choosing rest over running to help my achy left leg rest. I've stretched, foam rolled and amped up work on my core, with the goal of resetting my gait so everything feels okay running.
I'm happy to say on the latter front, the patience paid off. I ran 14 miles on Saturday after taking a second full week off of running -- and had no pain. A few aches and niggles on a blustery morning -- including snow flurries, for Pete's sake -- but no pain! I was giddy.
Early this morning, two days later, I ran six miles and felt fast and awesome. Hooray!
As for the weather... well, I ran in shorts and a short-sleeve shirt this morning for the first time in months -- and just two days after those snow flurries I mentioned. Another hooray!
I put away the woobie. Hooray!
My friend Shaun is the one who uses this the term -- he uses it to refer to his warm running clothes, which are hard to put away after a long winter. When you get up obscenely early on a cold morning you just want to bundle yourself as you think about venturing outside and actually running in crappy weather. We've joked about the woobie on several runs lately.
This morning was 61 degrees at the Chicago lakefront. Bye-bye woobie.
Of course I like to make metaphors out of stuff like this. After I got home this morning and took a deliciously hot shower, I was scrounging in the fridge for leftover scrambled eggs. I came upon a tub of peppermint frosting.
I hate peppermint frosting. I bought it on accident months ago, thinking it was vanilla. Which I love. Yes, I am a vanilla girl. Yum.
The tub of frosting had been sitting, unopened, in the pantry for ages. Now it will sit in my fridge until I just toss it. I hate to waste it, but, yuck.
On Easter a few weeks ago, M-man and his sister dove into their Easter chocolates like nobody's business. They were wacky on the junk, throwing fits when the hub and I cut them off from chocolate more than once that day.
At some point that afternoon, M-man had gotten into the pantry, found the frosting and even managed to pull off the foil seal. That is not easy for a four-year-old.
The hub and I were laughing -- but a little nervous -- at our little sugar monkey. My fault -- mommy has a terrible sweet tooth. But I always hide my-dip-the-spoon-in-the-tub-of-frosting habit -- so how did he know to find the frosting and rip it open?
Yesterday I took M-man to his swimming lessons. He did great, wearing his little goggles and acting like a total squirrel. As I was toweling him off in the locker room afterward, he noticed I was wearing a race shirt. He asked me if I ran a race while he was swimming. (I think it's adorable that anytime he notices me in running clothes, he always thinks I'm running a race.) I told him no, honey, remember I watched your swimming lesson and we wave to each other?
He paused and said, well, is your shirt stinky? LOL. Guess he's gotten a lot of post-run hugs from his stinky mama.
So as I looked at the frosting today I thought the "woobie" -- and how we all have woobies that make us feel good, that comfort us.
I also thought of how much our kids are studying us, taking notes constantly of things we don't even realize they're noticing. My son notices eating habits, and he notices exercise habits. And if I really think about it, it's a pretty incredible honor to be such an influence on someone's life -- as grownups who are around kids are. I've been a mom for 20 years and I forget that a lot.
So, for me, maybe I'll put away my "woobie" -- make sure I'm not sending the wrong signal on junk food.
Though nothing too crazy, of course. I have an unopened tub of chocolate frosting in the pantry -- on a very high shelf.
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