The weekend started off a little rough, since I woke up Friday morning to a dead car battery. With some help from my dad, a tow truck driver and Jose from Nicaragua at Auto Zone, I am now the proud owner of a new car battery and have $100 less in my bank account. I finally got to work by 11 a.m. and I was deliriously exhausted. I have a strict no napping rule, and I don't drink caffeine, so when I get tired, there's not much that I can do. Knowing I had to be in West Chester at 7 p.m. for 2 hours of Zumba, I figured I would just rest a bit. So once I got home from work, I laid down and tried not to fall asleep. I drifted off for about a half hour, and felt weird and sloggy when I woke up (hence the reason for my no napping rule).
After an hour drive up 75 fighting traffic, I wasn't much in the mood for Zumba when I walked into the West Chester Fitworks. However, as soon as I got in there, I started to get amped. There was such electricity in the room I couldn't even think about being tired. It reminded me a lot of my Zumba training day in July--there's just nothing like a bunch of high-energy dance instructors all in one room--craziness! I got to meet some fellow instructors and taught on 2 songs (one as a group and one with a partner). But more importantly, I had so much fun!
I didn't get home until about 10, so 7 a.m. came a little too quickly this morning. I'm "training" to do 2 half marathons this fall, one in October and one in December. (I put the quotes around training because after doing 2 full marathons, I don't really consider anything short of 13 miles as actual training anymore.) My friend Jenn is doing the October half marathon too, so we are "training" together. She's been having a rough time with lack of motivation lately in her running, so she came up with a brilliant idea for today's run: Downhill, both ways. How did we manage to accomplish this, you may ask? We planned a point-to-point 6-mile run from her condo in Independence, down the berm of KY-17 to Pioneer Park.
Point-to-point runs are a great idea for when you are feeling unmotivated about a particular distance. A couple of mental factors come into play: 1.) You can't cut short the distance like you can with a loop. Sometimes I'll go out to planning do 8 miles, then I get to the 3-mile mark and decide,"Eh, six is enough for me today," and turn around and be mad at myself the whole way back for wimping out. With a point-to-point, you have to cover the distance no matter what. For today's run, Jenn's fiance Shane was picking us up at the park. So we knew that in order to get back home, we had to get to the park, either by running, walking or hitching a ride with a trucker. (We chose running.) 2.) You reduce the monotony. You never pass anything twice. Every inch of the run provides different scenery. 3.) You can make an all-downhill route!
Not only was this my fastest run in quite some time (we were doing just under 10-minute miles), but we got to the park and got to 6.5 miles where the car was, and decided to tack on another half mile to make it an even 7. So that's it for me today... I'm going to hit the shower and am off to spend some time with my family this afternoon. Until next time, may all your Zumbas be electric and all your runs be downhill.
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