Distress

I managed to pull myself out of bed despite only getting about five hours of broken sleep last night. Since my son has started sleeping through the night I have started thinking that he isn't breathing and I get up and check every 60-90 minutes to make sure he's alive. He's alive every time I go in there but he's usually in a new and more interesting position than he was on the previous inspection. My son is a mobile one. He's a belly sleeper and a roller so I usually find him at one end of the crib or the other and usually with his head 180 degrees from where it was earlier.

I got up, put on my shorts and shoes, checked the Weather Channel, stretched and took off. The intent was to run a ten miler because I'm working all weekend. I live on the northeast side of Chatham about a block from the cornfields and my course took me out that direction. I was running along, minding my own business, about a half mile into my run when I heard a snorting sound like something was surprised and angry about it. In my peripheral vision I saw a very large mass make a sudden movement in my direction, or so I thought, and I almost evacuated my bladder. If I had hair on my head long enough it would have stood on end, as it was my arm and chest hair probably made up for it. As it turns out, the deer was more afraid of me and took off for the open country perpendicular to my trajectory. I got my heart rate back to normal and a block down the road I noticed something in a developing subdivision looking at me as I ran by. It was three more deer that rapidly left the scene but didn't scare the crap out of me.

I made it through my first mile in 9:48 which was a surprise because I thought I was running faster. I always did have a hard time gauging my pace in the dark. I ran my next two miles, deer free, in 8:46 and 8:38. Heading to the four mile mark I spaced out and forgot to hit my split but ran miles 4-5 in 17:09. About a half mile past the four mile mark I got hit by a bad case of gastrointestinal distress and I'm glad I was near trees. I continued on incident free after that but called my run a seven miles so I could get home and get ready to work. I ran my last two miles in 8:20 and 8:01 for a total seven mile time of 1:00:44, minus the pit stop. The temp was 73, SSE 10 and 43% humidity.

I got my son ready after I showered and we ate cereal and strawberries before I took him to daycare. I went to work, did some stuff and decided to go home at about 1100 because I wasn't going to be able to get a day off before my work weekend. I picked up Nathan and since he had a full belly from his lunch and a clean diaper we went for a short 3 mile run. I have a jogging stroller that we've only used twice before so I put sunscreen on both of us, put him in the stroller, pulled the canopy down to cover him and off we went.

I left my water bottle on the counter and I started wishing I hadn't about halfway through the run. The wind was coming out of the south pretty hard and I realized that I hadn't checked the weather before I left. We completed our jaunt in 25:17 with splits of 8:38, 8:23 and 8:17. The interesting thing about the stroller is that it caught the wind real well and was hell to push when we were heading south most of the first two miles of the run. Upon checking the Weather Channel when we got home I discovered that if was 89 with 25% humidity and 24mph winds out of the SSW that were gusting to 34mph. I got a nice workout pushing the stroller today and I'm looking forward to not running tomorrow on my wedding anniversary. Four years ago tomorrow I watched my wife walk down the aisle and bluddered like an idiot. I almost couldn't say my vows I was crying so hard. It was a good cry, not a "what-the-hell-am-I-doing" cry. It has been a good four years.