Nurse on the Run

…and neither do marathoners.

What a week it has been!!  The snow came down last weekend, and then graced us with it’s presence again Tuesday night and well into Wednesday evening.  I think we got another 18-ish inches to add to the 18 that we already had, which is quite exciting.  Apparently that’s more snow that Pennsylvania has gotten in the last year combined, and I think it’s some sort of overall record.  We got more snow than Buffalo, NY did this year!  Why the weatherman chose to compare us to Buffalo is beyond me, but I’m going to assume they get a lot of snow up north in Buffalo.  The mayor declared a state of emergency and “only essential personnel should be on the roads.”

Well, I guess that’s me.  A couple people asked me if I still needed to go into work with the snow.  I don’t think snow has magical healing powers so the patients are still there…yep, gotta go to work.  Luckily not too many people were out on the roads on Wednesday afternoon and the roads were a little plowed (but not really), so going slow worked well for me.  I went about three miles per hour down a giant hill in an attempt to not run my Honda Civic off the road.  Since I knew it was supposed to snow allllll Wednesday, I packed a bag in case I had to spend the night at the hospital…which pretty much would have been my worst nightmare.  Luckily the snow stopped around 9pm and I was able to get home quite easily.  The roads are actually worse now because I don’t think they even touched the residential streets so all the snow is just packed down from cars driving over it.  So slippery!!

Even with all the snow, don’t you think I missed out on my runs!  I knew the snow would be bad on Wednesday so I shifted my workouts to include a rest day on Wednesday…good planning because there was NO way I was going to run!  The best weather for snow is actually some of the best weather for winter running…if it’s warm enough to snow, then it means it’s pretty warm out!  Being from Chicago, I know what it’s like to be too cold to snow.  (Yes, there is such a thing!)

A few runs to catch up on:

Monday, February 8
8.05 miles in 1:01:20, avg pace of 7:37

I thought my legs were going to be super tired since my salty fifteen mile run, but they weren’t at all!  The run felt awesome and the roads were clear, which was definitely nice.  I feel much more confident about running when I can run well the day after a long run.  Perhaps working a shift as a nurse is a good way to work out post-long run soreness?  Forget ice baths…just run around like crazy for eight hours!  Done.

Tuesday, February 9
4.02 miles in 31:57, avg pace of 7:57

I actually attended a Body Pump class at the gym on Tuesday morning…getting my butt out of bed at eight in the morning on my day off.  Crazy!  Body pump is a weight lifting class set to music, and it was pretty fun!  I’m soooo weak!  haha.  I’ll dedicate another post to my Body Pump experience, but I went running (outside, of course) after the class and my legs were tired!  I told myself to keep it slower for some recovery and this is what I ended up with.  I feel like runs that are only four miles should feel really short, but this one didn’t!  Go Body Pump…haha.

Thursday, February 11
11.09 miles in 1:29:41, avg pace of 8:05

Oh dear.  Ohhhhh dear.  What a run.  Since the roads were okay on my drive home last night, I figured I’d hit the roads for my eleven miles, even though I really didn’t feel like it!  I never regret a run after I’ve done it, so away I went.  Parts of the roads were fine so I tried to stick to them, although for the last five miles I pretty much ran on packed, slippery snow.  My pace ranged anywhere from a 7:30 miles to a 8:46 mile…based purely on my footing!  I was NOT enjoying myself for those last five miles!  Anyway, after about 2/3 of a mile, I totally wiped out.  Feet out from under me…total face plant.  I mainly hit my knees and nothing really hurt so I kept going.  I suppose most normal people would turn around and go home, but I decided to keep running.  Crazy, huh?  For the rest of the run, I almost slipped about two more times, but not too bad.  One car was backing out of his driveway and almost hit me…he probably wasn’t expecting to see anyone out on the roads.

Highlight (or not so much) of my run:  I was about half a mile from my house, where a stoplight exists.  As I was coming up to the stoplight, a truck that had just passed me rolled down his window and yelled, “You need to stop running because you get yourself or someone else killed!!”  Wait.  Waaaaait.  What?  The roads weren’t great, but I like to think I’m a pretty safe runner.  I never run with music so I’m alert to my surroundings, I run down the side of the road (not the the middle…), I try to wear bright colors when I think visibility might be bad (although people still almost hit me when I’m wearing yellow…), and I always have my eye out for cars or other potential hazards.  And really, if you think the roads are that unsafe, why are you out driving?  And on that note, it would be nice if you were actually using the plow on the front of your truck.  Just saying.

I’m excited that tomorrow is Friday and even more excited that the weekend is so soon!  Two days off…so good!!