running

OMG I JUST HATE RUNNERS/CYCLISTS WHY WON’T THEY JUST GO AWAY!

| cheriarmour

Okay real life first.  I attended a very lovely wedding today of some close friends of ours.  It was unique in that, 1, they did it at a neighborhood bar/cafe, and 2, they did it on a Sunday.  It was a lovely time, and it’s wonderful to get some ideas for our upcoming nuptials.

Pint

The favors were super cute, personalized pint glasses, and the company was divine. Congrats to the happy couple!

Moving right along. 

The issue with cyclists/runners came up last week when a good friend asked a legitimate questions about whether cyclists had to abide by the same rules that cars did.  (Absolutely yes).  Another friend, (this took place on Facebook,) sort of jokingly commented that all cyclists were idiots and that they should get off the road.

All jokes aside, this sentiment is not a rare one.  The following was a huge deal in Raleigh, after a local morning DJ made some nasty comments about local cyclists.

“On September 22 and 23 of 2003, Dumas encouraged listeners to call in and relate stories about how they terrorized bicyclists. In the course of that show, he said that he kept empty bottles in his vehicle so that he could throw them at cyclists. [2] These statements caused protests from the local community,[3] who successfully lobbied for an official resolution that the capital of the state was friendly to bicyclists[4] and convinced some local businesses to pull their advertising. Bob was suspended for two days and station management aired an apology.[5] Eventually a compromise was reached between the community and station management.[6]” 

And folks wonder why I literally hate morning radio with such a passion.

The point is, cyclists and runners alike aren’t looked upon favorably by non-runners and cyclists.  I get it, there are some folks who act like a-holes when they get on bikes and go for a run.  Don’t follow the rules.  But the majority of us follow the rules, and generally just don’t want to be killed by a driver who’s texting their friends on the way to work.

The Accident

About a year ago, I was coming home from a party around 1 am, and I happened upon a cyclist who’d been hit by a car.  The car had clearly left the scene, and he lay in shock while a few of us tried to figure out what to do.  He was doing what he was supposed to.  He was wearing a helmet, had a blinky on his bike, and was riding in a well-lit, well-populated area.  As it turns out, the driver was driving without a license, and was impaired when she hit him and left the scene.  Poor guy was in shock, and I believe he survived, but broke his leg and got 70+ stitches out of the deal.

Cyclists + Runners

All this said, most of us cyclists, walkers, and runners are doing what we can.  We wear our bright clothing, follow the rules of the road, turn down our iPods, and pay attention,  And at least once a run, I’m forced to give folks the “what the hell!” hands because they’re flying out of a right turn so quickly that had not jumped out of the way, I’d be a goner.  The few of us that act like a bunch of wieners don’t represent us as a whole.

So please, please, if we follow our rules, 

  • Put down the cell phones.  Usually when I almost get run over, it’s because someone is texting, or dialing a call out of their phone.  It’s illegal in most of the Northeast, but we know that the South doesn’t always catch onto these things quickly.  So be proactive, and put it down.  ESPECIALLY those of you with kids in the backseat.  Seriously, what the heck are you teaching your kids?  And how is that safe?
  • Be careful pulling out of your driveway. 
  • Likewise with the right turns.  Please resist the urge to slam out of the neighborhood, doing 50.
  • Be aware, especially if you’re driving a newer car or a hybrid, that we can’t hear you coming.  They manufacture those cars to be quiet, which is fancy and great, but we can’t hear you, so be cool coming around curves and coming out of your driveway.
  • Obeying the speed limit is crucial, especially in pedestrian heavy areas.  That way, if you do hit someone, death isn’t eminent.

 

I don’t want to die during a run. That’s not how I pictured it going down. So I don’t care if you saw a cyclist being a jerk in Cary once. I don’t care if you don’t get why they can’t just ride their 30 miles in a cul-de-sac somewhere. I don’t care if you don’t understand why runners don’t always opt to find a greenway. It doesn’t matter. It literally does not matter. Share the road, and avoid a situation where we’re reading an avoidable obit in local news.

@GavinDegraw be mine.

| cheriarmour

I promise this is going to go somewhere running related.

So, like 8 years ago (gulptiy gulp), I think it was like an SAT day or something, and my mom let me leave school, because I was a senior and I didn’t have to be there.

ANYHOO, so I left school to go to a CD store (cause iPods were like barely a thing yet,) and I bought this thing for like $10.99.

Chariot

And I was hooked to the one and only Gavin Degraw. He had the voice of a black man, but he was all white and stuff. He covered a lot of old Motown, which I’d grown up on, and he played guitar, piano, and danced like he actually was performing and having a good time on stage.

And thus, my stalking began.

It started finally my senior year in college.  I saw him perform at High Point University with a friend, and he stayed after to sign some autographs.  I think he signed my program, and stared at him with my mouth open, until he did a double-take, and asked me, rightfully concerned, if I was okay.  I closed my mouth, and died.

I saw him again at a furniture thing in High Point.  This time, I was ready.  A little liquid courage inspired both my dance moves, the inappropriate messages I yelled to him, and the stalking I did to his bandmate, Billy Norris.

After the show, we waited for him.

GDG: Pretty girls, come take a picture!

(Gavin called me pretty. You can’t tell me any differently now).

GDG: I saw y’all dancing down there!

(We were dancing hard, it’s not hard to believe.)

Me: Will you sign my beer?

(He signed my beer.)

10335_584285011173_5935226_n (1)The third time I saw him was in Jersey with my other boyfriend, Adam Levine. And the fourth, I’m pretty sure he glanced in my direction.  But I can’t be entirely sure.

So where is this going?

GDG

Okay, so it looks like my boo, Mr. DeGraw will be performing at the Finisher’s Concert after this half-marathon.  In Cleveland.  For those of you Cher fans living elsewhere, I live in North Carolina.  Not close to Ohio.  I need to go, run this race, and get to this concert for a few reasons.

  • Gavin DeGraw. He may call me pretty again.  He may congratulate me on a job well done, as I will have finished another half.  HE MAY CALL ME ON STAGE TO SONG OF MY CHOOSING.  And that’s really important.  I know all his ad-libs, so he needn’t worry.
  • Gavin mentions Carolina in his new single.
  • Another 13.1 could help.  I need to get myself in a few more race situations before the full in October.  I haven’t properly raced since April, and I need it to light the fire under my behind.
  • This could be a small concert.  Meaning that I will get to wave at Gavin and bandmates with my hands.

Now I recognize, flying off to Cleveland isn’t necessarily advised.  Believe it or not, blogging about making smoothies doesn’t pay 400k a year.  But it isn’t necessarily ill-advised either.  Cause I’m a baller.  So, what do I do?I need your advice.    

I ran this morning.

| cheriarmour

I had to get my tush up at around 5 to make sure I could squeeze 11 in before work this morning.

Getting up early is never fun. Like for any reason. I cannot think of a time in my life when I’ve gotten up at 5 and I’ve thought “YAY, man I’m so glad I missed out on more sleep!” the one rose I found in this patch was that, at the very least, it wasn’t as cold as it was when I was training last winter for my first marathon.

My eyeballs were sandy.

So I made the executive decision to wear my glasses for the run. Bad move. NC is world-famous for her humidity, and my glasses were fogged beyond belief for most of the run. I actually popped them off, and spent the majority of my run both profoundly blind and in fear that I’d not see a car, or that I’d trip over the sidewalk somehow and break my wrist. Yay catastrophic thinking!

By the time I finished, I was feeling great, but in fear of my life, as I’d just run around Raleigh like that blind chick that’d competed on that one season of America’s Next Top Model. (You know the one, Amanda, from Asheville, with the kid?!)

shrimp

 

I made it.  The shirt was soaked, I looked like a little shrimp, but I made it.

Gross running stuff. 

I drove so I could run safely in the dark this morning.  And evidently, I got back into my car and soaked the seats.  Because when I got back into the car in regular clothes, my bum was wet.  Ugh.  YAY RUNNING!

Grossest/most worrisome thing that has happened to you when running?

#inspiration

| cheriarmour

Running runs in the fam.

I was talking on the phone with my mom yesterday, when she just started shrieking “CONGRATULATIONS” in my ear.

Once I got her calmed down, and the permanent deafness in my ear wore off, I found out it was because my brother, who’s 17, all muscular and stuff, made captain of his XC Team.

Armour FAM

Me and the broski are centermost in the group. Pardon my hair, it was horrible and disheveled, a combination of severe NC humidity and the race I’d run the night before.

Anyhoo, how awesome is that? So at 17, the kid is slaying my 5k times by nearly 10 minutes, and captaining his XC team? I need to get my life. And quickly. Congrats, bro! Oh, and happy Labor Day!

Locs and workouts.

| cheriarmour

I showed up to see friends last week with fresh locs, and the compliments wouldn’t stop. For those who weren’t as familiar with locs, I got a lot of well-meaninged “Did you get a haircut? It looks sooooo good!” So here’s how it goes down.

I almost understand when women say they don’t want to work out because of their hair.

It’s not cheap. OR (as in my case)

You spend an hour methodically twisting each loc, then you dry it, and tie it in a silk scarf, only then to look like you were raised by wolves a few days later after your 20-miler. I get it.

And last week was totally one of those weeks.

I’d started rocking the famous top-knot because my roots were looking so ratch, because I’d washed after a particularly grueling workout without a twist. You never do that.

Again, a lot of folks get curious about what goes on with locs, especially if you’re an active lady (or gent) so here’s the breakdown.

Hair

 

Far left is new growth/what’s unraveled kind of, since last twist. Locs grow like crazy because you’re not stunting them with scissors or chemicals, so even in a week’s time (and this was far longer than a week unfortunately,) you’ll notice some fuzzies at the root. You can kind of see it in this picture a little, and one of these days, I’ll take a better one so you can really see, but my hair is really two colors, super blond on the ends, and darker toward the roots. Not in a gross tacky way, but because I’ve spend almost three entire summers outside and I run outside, the ends of my hair have captured the most sun. It looks kinda cool, but it can make for some dry times, and I have to be careful to moisturize. Instead of washing with shampoo this time because I was so dry, I went straight to conditioner and glossed it with an oil right after.

Middle is post-twist. At this point, I’ve perfected the art of the twist and I can twist up my entire head in 45 minutes. I put it in a braid so I could finish watching Orange is the New Black without running the hair dryer. Plus it’s mid-summer. If I don’t have to blast my already dry mane with hot dry air, I won’t.

Far right is the finished product. Long, fresh, smell-good, and soft locs. This is what my hair looks like for 10 minutes before I work out.

And it’s hard. I love the way my hair looks when I’m all done. I love how swingy it is. I love that my honey loves how it looks. I love that I can do stuff to it. But I’ll be danged, taking care of this thing ain’t easy! I won’t cut them today, or even a year from today. But on those long run days, where my pony is slapping me in the back of the head? Yeah, I totally think about it.

Training and Food Poisoning

| cheriarmour

Seriously. The most chilling word combination I could have ever imagined in my life.

Saturday, I ate an Asian Tuna Salad from a local spot here in Raleigh.  So there was some raw fish involved.  And when you play with fire (raw fish) for long enough, eventually, your good luck runs out.  And mine did on Saturday night.

Saturday around midnight, before I found drunky moneky in the street (see the post), my tummy started aching.  Which isn’t totally rare for me, I was a colicky baby, and it never left me.  I popped a Gas-X (sorry, TMI, I know), and lay down on the couch.  And woke up in agony a few hours later.  It wasn’t just gas.  And it just got worse and worse and worse, especially after I got back home around 4 am.  I played games on my iPhone.  I used the facilities.  I tried to read (but the room was spinning).  And I couldn’t sleep a wink.

The problem with food poisoning, besides the fact that it freaking blows and it’s miserable, is that it dehydrates you, and in my case, rendered me completely unable to safely run my long run on Sunday.  Not wanting to completely derail my training, I hydrated all day Sunday, nursed the nausea, and woke up around 5 am on Monday to run long.  And despite the itty bitty bit of nausea I still had, it went really well, and took my mind off the profound misery I’d suffered for a few hours.

If you find your self suffering from food poisoning and you’re mid-marathon training,

  • Take time off.  You’re horribly dehydrated and the last thing you want is a fainting spell or a stint in the hospital to completely sideline you.
  • Hydrate.  It’s absolutely disgusting, and you’re probably not in the mood, but you’re pooping and vomiting all your water, electrolytes, and nutrients out.  Your body needs those to heal and get back to activity.  If you can stomach a few swallows of watered-down Gatorade or Nuun to replace some of those electrolytes, even better. 
  • A friend reminded me of those one.  The BRAT diet.  Bananas, or broth, rice, apple sauce, and toast.  You’re really not going to want much else, but these bland foods will keep your body focused on healing, and not digesting something ridiculous that you’ve chosen to eat.
  • Keep it bland for a while.  Everything.  Don’t try any new, interesting workouts.  It’s not the time for nachos.  Don’t go to hot yoga.  Don’t go to crossfit.  Keep the workouts simple for the next week or so.   Go to bed early.
  • No beer.
  • And while you’re sick, wash your hands.  On top of the misery you feel, you don’t need more disease from throwing up and the other thing, and not washing your hands.

No more raw fish for me for a while.  Woof. Woof. Woof.

 

Do as I say, not as I do.

| cheriarmour

You guys, it’s not that I think I’m above running law.  It’s just…idk, I sometimes think I’m smarter than everyone in the world. Do you ever get that sensation? No? Oh, me either…

Anyhoo.

So you know that whole rule of thumb, with running shoes right?

Buy your running shoes a half size to a full size larger than your dress shoe so that when your feet swell (and they will) you don’t get a sore toenail/lose a toenail.

Did I listen?  No.  Cause I’m smart and I know everything.  And then toward the end of last week, when my body started to get tired, the throbbing in my toe started.

piggies

I hobbled about, rubbing it when whenever I got the chance, but there’s no dodging it. Ya gotta follow the rules and buy the shoes in the right size. Your big toe will thank you. Those size 10s (yes, I’m 5’8″ and a size 10.5,) will have to hang out by their lonesome this week.

It’s 3 in the morning. And I have to run in like 4 hours.

| cheriarmour

But I could not, could not, could NOT go to sleep without telling you guys this story.

I knew I had to run 13ish tomorrow, but the boys, including the dear fiancé, the almond milk to my latté, were out celebrating a bachelor party. No problem. I stayed in. Munched on some treats. Slept. Applied for a game show (yep). Napped on the couch some more. Checked my bank account (yeesh). And did all the weird stuff you do when your boys are out.

Just before 2am, I get the call, please come pick us up. Great, no problem, better safe than Lohan, and I was more than happy to do it, as long as the boys got home safely.

Here’s where stuff just starts to get wild.

We’re driving down Glenwood, and we see a guy laying in the street, presumably drunk. We pull the party bus, Mitsubishi Lancer Armstrong over, and begin to investigate where the heck this guy is from, who he’s with and all that good stuff.

I pulled out his iPhone, as he is comfortably now napping on the porch of a vacant house. I call “Jill”, whom I find out just met him at the bar, and who doesn’t really know him. I call “Hendrix”. I look at his texts for clues. Earlier that evening he was “dancing with some hoochies” in case you were curious. So between me and Austin, we locate his friends, who are slightly more coherent than our friend, Christian, who doesn’t know where he’s staying, is, but only by a hair. The friends roll up, but not before starting fights with every passer-by who looks at them crookedly, and I hear dear Austin, repeatedly tell them to calm down.

The friends are here! We’re almost off the hook! But Christian is asleep on the porch. So what does any logically-thinking human being do? If you thought “gently wakes his friend up,” you guessed wrong. “James,” the upstanding young gentleman in the mandarin shorts, snaps a picture of his friend for Instagram, pulls out his junk, and begins to *ahem* relieve himself on the lawn of the home Christian is laying on. Austin orders him to put it away and “act sober,” to which James threatens to “kick the ass” of the folks he fought with earlier. I get to work waking Christian up, and Hendrix, who smells distinctly of beer and “hoochies” helps me get Christian up. And just as quickly as this bizarre drunky monkey wanders into our lives, they disappear down the hill without so much as a thanks.

3

 

“We did the right thing, babe.”

And I snapped a pic so we’d never forget the night Christian from Fayetteville nap-danced into our lives.

Salsa + miles

| cheriarmour

20130812-220144.jpg

Trying to strike the balance between teaching, and still getting those miles in without hurting myself, and still managing to give my students my absolute best. I’ll figure it out, right?