Stuck in a snowglobe!

Everything has seemed a bit out of wack this week.

Tuesday morning we awoke to a mess on the roads as Northeast Ohio had gotten buried with snow. The thing was, the snow was not supposed to let up much through the day and I was dreading a 2 hour commute to work and a 2 hour commute home. The husband urged me to call my boss and tell him I would just work from home. I don't know why I feel so guilty about doing that. Thankfully just as I got on the road, he called and I was able to work from home. Thank goodness!

Wednesday I awoke to more of the same. Crappy roads, spin out reports and traffic jams everywhere. Yet, again I hopped in my car. I had made it about 1/2 way there in an hour when the boss called. I was sitting in the parking lot known as 480, not moving. He said it would probably take me another hour and to just turn around and not bother. Who am I to argue?? After a bunch of manueverving and more sitting, I finally managed to get off the highway. What a joke!

Since I was already out, I hit the JCC on the way home for a run. Did I say the JCC? Yeah I guess I had not mentioned that as I searched out a convenient place to swim, I checked into various rates at places that might be "convenient" for me. Convenience is rather relative in my world living out in the boonies. Yet, after my tirade the other week talking abot missing my old gyms I decided that the JCC was still a good option for me. I can hit it on the way to or from work and it is not too ridiculously far if I wanted to just hit it from home. I got quoted a sweet deal and it really was a no-brainer.

There seems to be a consensus that perhaps the treadmill is a contributing factor to my hip flexor injury due to the biomechanics of it and the repititive nature of the running motion without the actual forward propulsion. Apparently it is a common treadmill overuse injury.

So for the time being, my plan is no treadmills-inside track or outside! So back to the JCC, I hopped on the indoor track since the snow was so deep outside and set out to run 5 miles easy. 13 laps equals a mile there, so it was time for 65 laps.

It felt glorious to run again!!! While I could feel the dull pain in my butt, my hip flexor was not too noticeable. Nothing really hurt and I felt as good as I have in awhile! As I counted off laps on my fingers up to 13, I flew past the walkers. I felt pretty fresh and consciously tried to run a nice even pace and not push things too hard (and actually felt like I was holding back a fair amount). I finished in 42:41 with a 8:32 pace.

I must have funny shaped ear holes as no matter what ear buds for my Ipod I get, I can never get them to stay in. I usually opt for my big stupid headphones because the ear bud ones always fall out. Is it because I sweat too much? It just ticks me off because I just bought these expensive Ipod ones with all these different earbud sizes, thinking I would have a winner for sure. They seem fine until I run and then everything goes to crap and I spend the entire run re-jamming them into my ears. Yeah I screwed with those stupid ear buds for 65 laps!

At the end of the day I stretched out well and headed over to the doc for some punishment. After finally making my way home, I sat there in my desk chair looking out the window. I watched as the snow continued to drop big fat flakes outside. Someone just won't quit shaking this snowglobe I have been in!

As far as the running goes, I am just going to ease back into things and run whatever way feels comfortable. Youngstown half marathon is on tap for Sunday. I am not planning to worry about my time (repeat to self over and over) and just run how my body feels.