I’m back!!!  Here’s how my week went:

MONDAY

Listening to: Disturbed

I was running, super-almost to the halfway point, when my stomach started to cramp up.  I was immediately nervous, but I knew once I got to the corner and turned around I could take the short-cut home if I needed.  When I turned around, I slowed to a fast walk and my stomach felt better.  I completely forgot about the short-cut and kept headed up the hill (haha!  I was editing this and saw that I inadvertently wrote hell instead of hill.  Understandable).  Unfortunately, during my final run the cramps picked up again.  It was awful, because I knew I needed to get home soon, but the more I ran the worse it got.  I’d slow to a fast walk and I’d freak out that I wasn’t going fast enough to get home.  I was screwed either way!  I told my friend Lenore I must have looked like someone who had polio as a kid and a limp the way I was trying to rush home while holding it together.  I finally made it, only to fight with the dogs to get in first.  I made it.

TUESDAY

Listening to:  Disturbed

At the final stretch of my run we passed an elderly gentleman we’ve passed many times in the past, always in the same general location.  Every time I pass him he does the most amazing thing.  He tips his hat.  That, my friend(s) is why I don’t call him an old man.  He’s an elderly gentleman who probably stands when a woman walks into the room and pushes her chair in for her.  I’m soaked in sweat, even dripping down my legs, I’m panting and I assume breathing really loud but I don’t know for sure because I have headphones on and my funk probably blows at him as I pass, like the wind that blows after a truck passes.  But I feel like Julia Roberts in her brown dress with white polka-dots at the polo match.

WEDNESDAY

Listening to:  Kid Rock

Today was pretty uneventful other than the part where Lukey made it through the entire route without pooping or attempting to pee.  I love that little Luke.  There was one little incident that rubbed me wrong.  Let me premise this with the fact that when Luke poops he does it in the ivy, where it could very likely be found but I’m not going to take the time to look for it, eating into my #runstreak time.  That being said, as we started heading up the big hill I noticed a man across the street in his backyard with his low-wall reaching over said wall and dropping a giant pile of doggy poop from one of his gigantic dogs.  I was so very tempted to cross the street just to see how many piles were lining the wall just on the other side of his backyard but I was afraid of the stink.  Then I kinda wanted to yell at him, “Dude!  Really?!?!  You have a low wall!  You can’t still smell it?  And what the HELL?

THURSDAY

Listening to:  Evanescence

Every #runstreak I’m amazed that I manage to encounter a story to go along with it, and today was no exception.  Near the bottom of the hill, as I was heading up, I noticed some grown man work boot muddy footprints and I immediately remembered that they were there yesterday and wondered why the gardeners hadn’t hosed it down.  As I continued up the street I realized the footsteps never stopped; they continued as if this man’s boot had perpetual mud on the bottom.  I finally noticed an occasional dark muddy foot print on the two-brick retaining wall, leading away from the mud and toward the sidewalk.  At the end of the muddy footstep trail I finally realized that these footsteps also led back in the other direction.  My question is, do I assume some ass was purposefully stepping into the mud in order to make a long muddy trail, or was it one of the nice gardeners checking on the sprinklers and not realizing what he was doing?  As I do not speak Spanish this will remain a mystery to me.  I will say that I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt because they are hard workers and always turn their blowers off when we pass; sometimes four times in a row.

FRIDAY

Listening to:  Evanescence

I #runstreak for a number of reasons:  Physical health, cardiovascular health, gastrointestinal health and mental health.  The beginning is easy, then the running kinda sucks but only for a minute or two before the endorphins kick in and I forget that it hurts and I’m hearing my music and I’m thinking about stuff, solving the world’s problems.  Today started out awful.  I walked out my front gate and headed left and as I came towards the pool I heard barking of two dogs.  I slowed down cautiously and saw a lady from across the street spinning back around and yanking her huge heavy boxer/pitbull I don’t know what it was but it was angry and loud and standing on its hind feet, pulling hard at the leash.  This woman was clearly trying to control her angry dog with her non-dominant hand, because aren’t cigarettes usually held in the dominant hand?  I’m not sure.  I just know she would have had more control had she let it go, just like she was about to let her dog ‘go’ on our grassy area instead of her own.  Thanks trashy lady (who deserves a post of her own and will get one).  She pushed me back almost 2 minutes with struggling and then putting the halter back on Allie that she had backed out of.  The thing is, I don’t know why I didn’t yell, “Get control of your dog!!”  I should have.  It was scary.  What if her dog had attacked mine?  What then?  I still just stand there like a deer in the headlights?  I need to work on that.  That is all.

I will not be running on Saturday.  I ran five days in a row, I deserve a break.