Crazy idiot drivers

This morning seemed to be a morning full of idiots on the road. Usually, I only have to worry about cars at one place on my running routes. When I'm running before work, and I run past the Dunkin' Donuts in town, I have to be careful about the idiots with a cell phone in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and they're in a hurry to get coffee and 10 dozen donuts. I don't know what they put down when they leave the donut shop. If they had four hands, they'd be in heaven with a cigarette, coffee, cell phone, and a donut. I've had some close calls as cars race each other to turn into the parking lot there, to get the one parking spot right by the door.

Anyway, before I even started running this morning, I had one incident that kind of freaked me out. It was just barely getting light, and as I entered our town, the speed limit drops from 40 to 25, and I always slow down accordingly. The police like to set speed traps right there, especially during the morning commute. So, just as I was entering town, some idiot decided I was driving way too slowly, and he passed me on a double-yellow line, with poor visibility, doing more than twice the speed limit. He got through town about 2 seconds faster than me, as he ended up stuck behind a number of other cars.

I dropped my clothes and lunch at the office and then drove back downtown. My wife was dropping her car off for some work at a local garage, so I left my car there for her, so she wouldn't have to walk to work in the rain. My workout was 9 x 1/2 mile, and I started with an easy 1 mile warm-up. I was less than a minute into my run when a car came through downtown going really fast. I realized just before it got to me that our paths were going to cross right at a giant puddle of water. There was no time to react and the car hit the puddle and completely soaked me. I said a bad word very loudly, but I'm sure the driver never heard me and had no idea that he'd just soaked me. Or maybe he did.

So, I finished my warm-up, did my first repeat (slow - uphill), took my rest interval, and started the second repeat. By this point in time, I was outside of downtown, but I was by the little shopping center outside of town where our only supermarket sits. I was running about a 6:30 pace as I approached the access road to the supermarket and a pickup truck was leaving the market by that road. I suddenly realized that the truck was turning right, towards me, and the driver had no intention of slowing down or looking to the right. I stopped to avoid getting killed and yelled another bad word - well, actually the same word I'd yelled previously. I was angry enough that my second repeat was my fastest of the day, despite the brief stop. Just as I finished the second repeat, I was at a point on the road where the shoulder narrows. Right at that spot, there was a large puddle on the road. As I was working hard on the last bit of the repeat, I happened to glance up and seen an 18-wheeler bearing down on me. At first, I thought about staying on the shoulder because I was already soaked. But then, I realized that an 18-wheeler might do more than soak me, so I stepped way, way off the road to avoid the truck and the splash.

After that, things settled down and the run went OK. I did write yesterday that I was sure I'd run faster today than I did last week for this workout. I was wrong. My times were nearly identical to last week. I felt steady and relatively strong, but just not fast today. My times still point to a sub-3:30 marathon, but I don't have much of a margin for error.

In the past, when I've used the Yasso 800 progression that I use, I have done the workout once per week when my rep count was 6, 7, or 8. As I got to 9 and 10, I would switch to doing it every other week because it's a tough workout. But, this time around, I did 9 reps on back to back weeks, which might explain why I didn't run any faster this week.

As I started my 8th repeat, a stupid collie decided to chase me down the road, teeth bared and growling. Normally, I would be a little freaked out by a dog chasing me, but after all the car and truck issues this morning, I basically told the little f*cker to go back home and leave me alone. My tone of voice must have been pretty good, because he listened to me and turned around.

Maybe this day started badly because I stepped on the scale this morning and didn't like the number I saw. I feel like I've been eating really well recently, yet I can't seem to drop any weight. If I'm not losing any weight right now eating the way that I've been eating, I wonder what would happen if I ate what I really wanted to eat.

Enough negativity. I had a good run, I'm healthy, and I'm still financially solvent, for now, at least.