We started the weekend with a little music, and caught the Bryan Thomas/ Julia Brown show at the Bread & Jam cafe in Cohoes. Check Bryan out. He's immensely talented. Writes and plays and photographs and kicks ass! The show put me in a great mood. I felt creative and motivated...
...until the alarm rang Saturday morning at 6am. Time to wake up and go to my first TNT training run in Niskayuna!! Oy.
A little background - The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society not only does amazing work for cancer patients and their familes, but if you agree to raise a certain amount of money for them, they will provide you with training and support for your event. They assign you a mentor (my mentor for the Lake Placid Half Marathon is Carrie. Hi Carrie!), they give you coaches and training schedules, and they set weekly group runs. This is what's know as Team In Training (or TNT). It's a fabulous program. The support is incredible. The team camaraderie is really motivating. Our team meets every Saturday at Niskayuna's Lions Park at 7am, right on the Mohawk river and bike trail. This week, the Lake Placid runners were assigned 4 miles.
Technically speaking, my training program doesn't start til Sunday, but hey - let's jump right in, shall we?
So, back to the clanging alarm. Oy oy oy. I am NOT a morning person. Not in the least. I shut the alarm off, turned over, and contemplated sleeping in for about 3 seconds. Then I got annoyed with myself, got out of bed, scraped my hair into a ponytail, stumbled to the bathroom and tried to cram contacts into my sleep-swollen eyes, then got dressed and out the door.
Having been denied my morning coffee, and being confused about the Exit 6 construction on the Northway, I decided to be a smartypants and take I-90 to I-890 to Niskayuna. Couple that stupidity with the attention span (and memory capacity) of a gnat, and you get a groggy Deirdre arriving at Blatnick Park (not Lions Park) at 6:50am. Follow that with one facepalm and several heavy sighs later, and I pull into the parking lot at Lions Park, just as the pack was taking off. Not having had time to stretch, I walked the first mile and jogged the rest of the 4 miles.
Good morning, Niskayuna! Pretty place to run, isn't it?
I ended the run feeling energized and happy and proud of myself for ignoring my inner sloth (and slightly stupid about my geo-retardation, but whatever). And the exercise didn't end there! I got home, and took the dog for a 3 mile walk/waddle/sniff/stare (she likes to stare, not bark, at other dogs). So that brought my mileage for the day up to 7 miles! I think that's a great start!
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