Training / Being a Ginger Kid
On my run today I worked on speed, which I've never done before. I usually just go nice and steady and tell myself finishing is all that's important. Just barely making it to the end. But this morning I pushed myself: 1 fast mile, 1 easy mile, 1 fast mile, 1 easy mile. My goal was 8:00 for fast, 10:00 for slow. I ended up doing my fast miles at 6:25 and 6:20 and my slow miles at 9:30. I hated the fast miles. I hate pushing myself the whole time. There's no enjoyment until those 6 or 7 minutes are over. It's just pure pain, feeling like you can't breathe, your brain telling you STOP IT YOU'RE KILLING YOURSELF. In the past I would have listened to that. I would have stopped. But doing well in the marathon has given me confidence that I'm capable of more than I'm currently doing. All those long runs training for the marathon taught me to ignore that voice.
I came home and took Madeline on a walk to go pick up my car. I drove it to Jana's last night and the "Low Fuel" light came on. I drove from Jana's to Chris's house. And then I made Drew drive me home. And this morning he gave me gas money. Sweet. So Madeline and I picked up the car, got gas, came home and had lunch.
I feel so high right now from that run. Also, and this is going to sound really lame, but I ran without a shirt. It's only the third time I've done that. As a super, super pasty white boy who has gotten a blistering sunburn through a tarpaulin tent it's extremely unusual for me to show any amount of skin outdoors. But I lathered on the sunscreen and I gotta say it feels GREAT to have the warmth of the sun on your skin and not worry about burning. I always worried that I'd missed a spot with my old sunscreen (a spot which would show up the next day as a big, strange-looking bright red blotch that hurt like a motherfucker) but now I've got Neutrogena Fresh Cooling Body Mist Sunblock which isn't all greasy, and which comes in a spray bottle so it's much easier to apply to my back without missing anything. It's really life-altering.
You're all tanners, I bet. Assholes. In all honesty, I feel like my life has been more adversely affected by being a victim of constant sunburning than by being a gay man. No one understands what it's like to slink around from one shadow to another, scared of direct sunlight. Every boyfriend I've had has told me I'm overreacting when I lather on the sunscreen. As a kid my best friend would chastise me, saying if I wouldn't wear so much sunscreen I'd probably tan. NO I WOULD NOT, PETER!! And then The Canadian got onto me for using an excess of SPF 45 on a roadtrip ("You're not going to get a sunburn through a glass window!"). I gave myself a sunburn just so he could see how wrong he was.
I forgot where I was going with this. Now I'm just pissed.
Labels: Chris, Drew, Jana, Madeline, Medical School, Money, Running, The Canadian