Well, I am officially no longer a resident of Madison, WI....how 4 years do fly by. I'm currently living in a ridiculous limbo at my house in Tosa, with all of my crap lying around in boxes...oh the fun. In 2 weeks I'll be hopping in a UHaul with the BF and shipping off to Boston...how insane. So anyway, yesterday was a day full of walking up and down stairs carrying heavy boxes, hauling furniture around, and climbing in and out of a truck about 1000 times. Talk about a good workout...my quads HURT today! I really wasn't planning on going running after all that, but when I got home I was incredibly surprised to find that my sister [not a runner, not one bit] wanted to go on a 4 mile run with me...how fun! We probably averaged about 8:30 or 9:00 pace, and she told me about all her boy drama from the summer. It was great to give my legs a bit of a break and I was just so excited that she wanted to run, I couldn't have cared less how fast we were going!
My last night in Madison was just another example of how much I love the WTC. What more perfect way could there be to say goodbye to a city than hanging out at the terrace with a few good friends? Nicole got me a cake which was so sweet, and we enjoyed plenty of Wisconsin beer and running stories and overall good times. My friend Ben basically tackled me before leaving which cracked me up, and it was just an incredibly wonderful, fun time. After the terrace, the 21+ crowd in the group headed to State Street Brats, one of my favorite bars and perhaps the most quintessentially "Wisconsin" - brats, Wisconsin beer, cheese curds, cows, Bucky Badger everywhere...etc. We grabbed a drink and after hanging out for awhile, were about to leave when suddenly, I heard the familiar opening strains of a certain song...
DON'T STOP BELIEVIN'.
If you know me at all, you know that this Journey classic is one of my favorite songs in all the world. It's pumped me up for races, nights out, and everything in between, but most important to the scenario on this night was that it is MY song, the song that will forever be connected with my college life in Madison, being randomly played at my favorite bar on my last night in Madison. Could there be anything more fitting and perfect? At that moment I was torn between laughing and crying, so I picked a better alternative - singing. Oh, I sang that song with all my might...and it was glorious.
It was pretty hard saying goodbye to Nicole - even though I'll probably see her in 2 weeks when I'm up for the Madison Mini Marathon. She has been one of my best friends throughout all of college, from the day we met at the Med Scholars picnic, to suriviving Math 221 together, to telling her about track club and our days as hurdlers/sprinters, all the way up until both of our conversions to the church of distance running. We've had endless discussions about our [ok...MY] random hookups, track boys we liked [culminating in her ending up in a relationship with one!], school, life, and everything in between. Over hurdle practices and endless runs through the arb we became really good friends [had I not bailed out on Med Scholars, we would have been sharing an apartment and going to med school together right now], and she's one of the people that I definitely want to keep in touch with beyond college. So it was a bit sad to realize that who knows when we'll see eachother again, but at the same time I'm confident that we'll stay friends.
OK, enough nostalgia for now. My 10 mile progression dealio ended up being kind of a fail, thanks mostly to the fact that I haven't run in 85 degrees and sunny for awhile - UGH! My initial attempt turned into a pretty pathetic 2 miles as I realized that I was starving and this run wasn't happening without food. A few hours and some Panera Bread later, I took my expectations down to 8 miles, with the goal of pushing myself a bit. The result was a pretty respectable 7:31 pace - so failure on progression, but success on overall pace I guess. It was really hot and I struggled quite a bit, having to stop for water a few times and feeling like I was overheating, but I made it somehow. My legs just didn't feel speedy, they felt kind of dead. I'm trying to ease off the next couple of days so hopefully that feeling doesn't present itself during my 18-miler on Sunday...oh dear sweet lord.
1 comment:
always a little scary time - in transition! leaving behind old friends and everything you know, but i'm sure you will quickly find a new home and niche in boston. it is a pretty big city for running afterall! :) i can't believe you got a run in after all that packing/moving - i'd be drained!
Post a Comment