excuses, excuses

I know what you're thinking..... "Damn, girl, you ran that blisteringly fast 5k yesterday morning! So what happened in the Freeze Your Thorns Off virtual 5K??? Did you choke? Was that PR an anomaly?"

I ran the Sweat Your Thorns Off 5K last summer and set an unofficial PR (which still stands!) so I had high hopes for this one as well.  But it was not to be.  <sad face> So I asked myself the burning question: "What gets in the way of a PR??" I know there are as many reasons why as there are grains of sand on the beach, but let me share with you the barriers that prevented me from getting a PR twice in one day.

1. Let's start with my choice of running partner.

Jane is not as interested in the actual act of running as I am.  Don't get me wrong, she LOVES to be out running but she's much more interested in whatever it is she's interested in, rather than focusing on some stupid goal I might have for our outing.



2.  Snowmen

I just know that bastard is preparing some type of attack.

Jane hates snowmen.  


And because we've gotten some snow recently, and it's of the perfect snowman-making texture and consistency, they kept popping up where she least expected them.  


Each one had to be given a wide berth and then circled back to and examined ever closer.

Gaaaah!  It's a pack of snowmen!!

FYI- Large snowballs are highly suspect as well.

3. Bodily Functions


No, not mine.


Jane's other name is "Two Poops" because that's usually how many times she has to mail a package during the average run.










4. 5K route being altered due to bodily functions


Because I didn't want to carry Jane's gift during the entire run, we took a detour to dispose of it properly. I am a responsible dog owner, yo!

Here's an action shot of me using a public receptacle.

You should know that this was next to the parking lot of an elementary school and based on the attire of some of the kids, there must have been a basketball tourney of some sort going on.  While I was capturing this momentous moment, parents and kids were heading to cars and were noticing me taking the picture.

I shouted, "It's ok!  It's for my blog!" but that just seemed to make them hustle their kids into the cars faster.  Sigh.

My FYTO5K 2012 route.

5. Ice, ice baby!  And snow too!  


We hit it all: ice covered sidewalks, snow covered trails, and we even ran for a while on the lake.  All that stuff is gonna slow you down. Honest.

Even the bridge to the school was covered in ice.

That's pure ice, folks! 

Jane had to drag me up this hill.  It's steeper than it looks.

Jogging on the trail next to the lake.... 

....and jogging on the lake......

...... and trying to dig for fish while out on the lake.

Victorious FYTO5K finishers! Per usual, it's a hideous photo of me but Jane looks good.   You can kind of tell that it was cold and that my nose was running.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any shots of me doing snot rockets.  It's a real shame too, because they were beauties!

So I guess that's what you could say is my blame train.  You know the saying, "I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was going to blame you."  But who cares.  It was fun!


Here's what iSmoothRun said about the weather: Temp 25 °F, Wind Chill: 13 °F, Winds: 14mph W, Humidity: 63%.  Damn near froze my thorns off!


And because I'm all about honesty and transparency and crap, I must post my splits of shame.......

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
Summary	37:15.5	3.11	11:59
1	11:16.6	1.00	11:17
2	12:58.9	1.00	12:59
3	11:49.2	1.00	11:49
4	1:10.9	0.11	10:43

Thanks to Adam at TheBoringRunner.com for hosting a fun run!!