Sometimes, wine needs to be the priority

I was honestly thinking this morning, right after I jumped out of bed, ran at full speed to turn the coffeemaker on, put on my Aspaeris Pivot compression shorts, my Cho-Pat compression sleeves, how the hell am I going to write today's blog post, I have so much random crap to talk about?

Then it hit me - today is Thursday - day of blogging randomness! So here's some random crap that I've done or is on my mind.

1. This week has been horribly stressful (even beyond the stuff I can admit to on FB and Twitter, believe it or not!), but I think  I can handle any stressful week if I get a random Jewish holiday off on Thursday.

2. Last night was my absolutely favorite activity ever - drinking wine outside with the world's greatest girlfriends. We met at a wine bar in the harbor where sit outside on the water. Looking forward to it got me through the week, I even rearranged my training schedule to have today as a rest day. I plan my wine consumption around my training 99.9% of the time,  but once in awhile it needs to be the other way around.

We took "couple" pics of those sharing the same bottle. Sorry I still haven't figured out that whole "flash" thing yet.

Casi and Carolyn

Lily and Tricia

Deidre and I

As much as I despised playing on a softball team this summer, that's where I met Deidre, so it was worth the mind numbing boredom and torture of everyone watching me bat.

3. Right before I left for the wine bar and thought life couldn't get any better, I got an email from Kara, and it somehow did.

Now I have weekend plans other than grad work, and I get to race with Kara! I did a metric marathon last year and it was a lot of fun.

4. I'm secretly really scared. Kara's really fast and we've never run on the road together (I mean, other than at mile 30 of a 50K). She says she's not, but just friend her on daily mile, and you'll see the truth. She's also super hardcore and will never back down because she feels "like crap" or "ready to vomit", like I will. (Ok let's be serious, I would have backed down long before that point). I often think to myself "WWKD?" (What would Kara do?), and the answer is always, run more, or run faster.

5. I'm secretly glad I'm doing the race, because my training has completely sucked this week, which is why I was glad I had a bunch of other stuff to blog about. Tuesday, Jill and I did a track workout. I could have pushed it, but I didn't. There was essentially no speedwork involved at all, just because I didn't feel like it. We did 7.1 miles. Lily and I did 8 miles Wednesday morning, and it was slow, because of me, and I didn't feel like I could push it. Lame.

6. A creepy strange man cornered us after our track workout Tuesday to tell us he's been "watching us for weeks" and wanted to discuss our form in detail. He also said, regarding the marathon "So.... you guys are trying to finish the whole thing?" and told us we had wasted our time coming to the track because we had been chatting. He said we should only focus on our workout. Right....that's not how I roll. Talking with friends is half the reason I run.

7. We all know I run at 5am which it's pitch black outside, and I hate my headlamp, so when I got some Knuckle Lights to test out, it was like a match made in heaven.

Knuckle Lights go on your knuckles, as you may imagine, and work like a headlamp.  The website explains that even though you move your arms as you run, the beam is wide enough that you will still have plenty of light to see as you run. (PS - creepy guy also said never to look at your feet as you run. I wanted to say that's how you trip over dead cats). 

I'm a teacher, so I always start with the positive. The lights worked great, didn't bother me, and provided plenty of light for both Lily and I to see, even when I was behind her. Here's me trying to show how well they light up a dumpster.

Ok so you can't tell from this pic. But I could see the trash perfectly.

It was true that the beam of light was wide enough that I could see fine throughout my fun. I plan on using these on all my 5am runs from now on.

See how bright?

My only complaint was that there was no explanation of how to wear them, and dummies like me need diagrams. They were rubbing against my hand and really uncomfortable for the first seven miles, and then I turned them around and they felt fine. The company also said they were redesigning the strap so it would be more comfortable.

 

I also couldn't use my handheld bottle, but it's not really Knuckle Light's fault I only have two hands. Hard choices needed to be made.

It was hard for Lily and I to take good pics, because we were busy with our running, so Eric took a few more when I got home from work.

Disclaimer: I didn't buy these, because I'm cheap, they were generously provided to me for this review. But I swear my opinions are my own. If you don't believe me, I'll create a vlog with Lily telling you all that I complained about work, and probably tons of other things, on our run, but NOT the Knuckle Lights, not even once. She can also testify that we could see even on super dark scary roads.