For a Saturday, today started pretty early.  Just about as early as it does on a week day.  Why you ask?  Well – we had to drive down to DCA to drop Nick off to catch a flight to Portland (OR, not ME) for the SuperComputing conference.  I think that he was volunteered to go and set up because he’s done it before, which means he had to leave a day or two before the conference actually starts.  What would any unintentional morning person do when this task was done and I was back home by 7:15AM?  Sieze the day?  Absolutely not.  I went back to bed.  You see, I’m not really a morning person.  I just play one Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

I think Cashew wished that I had continued sleeping, even when I did roll out of bed for really at oh, 11AM – glorious 11AM.  Pinot and I made it outside for a longer-ish walk.  Well, longer-ish than we have the past couple of days in the rain.  It’s amazing how it seems like not so long ago, all the leaves had changed and it was all so colorful outside, and now the leaves are mostly on the ground.  It just looks like winter is coming, which does make sense given that it’s mid November.  It was nice to have a nice day today though, overall

Feel free to skip this next paragraph if you aren’t into my ramblings on fitness.

–(begin ramblings)—-

So my big goal for today was to get my long run for NEXT week out of the way today (9 miles) and to do my long run for this week next week (5 miles) because next week I’m heading to Philly with some cool people to watch this ocean of awesome run a marathon, and his counterpart (the lake of awesome?  the coral reef of cool?  — that girl — ) run the half.  Should be good times, and the almost Italian bella and I want to get there before it gets too late!  Which means, probably better for me to have a shorter run next weekend.  No problemo. I had it all set.  Had my route planned and entrusted to Minges, my counterpart in having someone know where I was going and when I should be back.  I should mention – yep, the 9 miles for today – it’s a mere 2 miles more than last weekend, but in the overall line up of me running - I ran somewhere between 9-10 miles once.  The first time I attempted to train for a marathon.  6 years ago.  And at that point, I decided that 9-10 miles was more than enough and I stopped right after that.  Course, I was younger then, and more into going out all the time.  That may have been a factor.  Maybe.  Anyway – so while I kept telling myself that it was only an extra 2 miles – really, this makes it up on the board of ‘runs that I have done that are quasi long’.  And so I set off on the Capitol Crescent Trail and ran all the way down to Melanie’s house.  I put-put, not speedy at all, but I was happy to have done all 9 (!) and to have done it faster than 11min/miles average.  Most, in fact, were shorter time wise, but the last 2 killed me.  I’m blaming it on the stop and go of being in the city.  Today I also realized that lifting weights on Fridays before the long runs tires me out – I waited on the lifting this week and todays run was actually easier than last week in that sense.  My biggest complaint from today is that my heart rate monitor strap attacked me.  Don’t ask.  Special thanks to Mel, JJ and Snowy for not minding that I stunk when I did make it to their place to get some water. 

—(end ramblings)—

So for those of you that skipped that, around 3:15 I was feeling pretty good because I had just run 9 miles from Bethesda down into the heart of DC.  Woohoo!  And what, you may ask, would any self-declared Husker fan who isn’t actually from Nebraska but loves the team just as much – what would that gal do when it is 3:15 and she’s downtown and parked in Bethesda but kick-off is at 3:30?  Well – hop on the metro to get back home to the game of course!  I even ran from the Bethesda metro exit to my parking spot.  (I guess I had some energy left after the long run.)  Never mind that all my layers were a bit caked with sweat.  And – when not driving of course – take a sneak peak at her sports app to see how the team is doing.  When I got home, I am happy to report, we were up 7-0 and I’d only missed the 1st quarter. The game – while it ended well – ended up being a good game to watch.  I’m glad that we won (Go Big Red!)   I’m also glad that I had dried off by the time the game had ended.   (yes, I am gross.  it’s the weekend.  priorities people.)

So at this point – it’s like 6:50 PM.  Crazy how quickly Saturdays go by, isn’t it?  If you read and were able to make sense of my fitness ramblings above, you may have noticed that in passing, I mentioned that I had moved my Friday weight routine to Saturday this week.  And so, with the game over and won, and in a pretty chipper mood, I tackled my weight workout.  Which was easy and painless.  And once that was over, finally, sweet, sweet shower.  And at that point, I realized that I should probably eat dinner.  This is beginning to sound like “If you give a mouse a cookie”, isn’t it?

So where, do you ask, does the effects of location come into all of this?  Well – here is my dilemna.  It is 9PM.   Friends are downtown on the hill, and have been since about 3 this afternoon.  I want to go out.  However -  capitol hill is a good hour drive (including parking).  Or – I could metro, but that would be a 30 min drive to Bethesda, followed by another half hour metro to the hill.  With the ‘kids’ at home, there is no option of going out and crashing with friends downtown, which means that going out would be a fairly dry affair.  And everyone has a pretty good (6 hour) head start.  At this point, I made the insane decision to stay in this evening.  If folks had been in Bethesda even?  Out in a second.  So, this evening, excuse or not – I’m upset that we live in Gaithersburg, and that Gaithersburg is not a cool trendy suburb of DC, wedged between Penn Quarter and Dupont Circle.  I may even settle for it being walkable from our place to a metro stop, but nope, that too is too much to ask.  Silly housing prices dropping so we are stuck here infinately.

Now – I have a feeling that some may say that strait up, I am being completely anti-social, and that I should just suck it up and go out.  If Nick were home, I am almost 100% sure that we would have.  Maybe Nick is more social than I am, but I don’t think so because I actually do want to go out.  I just don’t want to drive an hour each way to do it.  Maybe I’m lazy.  Maybe I’m just missing the yin to my yang (while I say – it’s so far away! Nick says ‘lets go!’ and I groan but I go, and it’s good.  Not because he talked me into it, but because he gets that it’s far away and he doesn’t let it bother him and that in turn helps me to get past it.  And having some companionship for the long long drive there and back isn’t so bad either.   I think that goes for both of us, though I am usually the one falling asleep on the way back.)

And so – the ladies of the house are planning on having mushroom leek risotto with some Boordy apple wine for dinner while watching some girly movies until all hours of the morning.  After I check a few more football scores.

The verbiage in this post made up for a weeks worth of minimalism.  Hope it kept you entertained.  Feel free to chime in on my dilemna – am I anti-social, or just location deprived?  You be the judge.