Day 36: a snotty Sunday solo

I intended to get to practice today but this sickness is really annoying the hell out of me.

I was a good girl last night, didn't go out, took medicine, drank tea, and ate this awesome pasta for dinner in preparation for the 5 mile run this morning (recipe via Smitten Kitchen - make it once and you have it memorized its so easy and delicious.)
But when I woke up this morning my chest was so congested I needed to take a good long hot shower to cough some of the grossness up before I went for a run. So I took my time, figured out where I needed to turn around to hit five miles, then headed out into the sunshine.

Lots of activity on the beach this morning - a million surfers were out, a lot of running groups and the usual characters you find in Venice. I took it very easy the first half which wasn't hard given the little coughs that kept occasionally plaguing me.  I felt very stiff at first, but chalked it up to my cold and worked through it.

I don't run with music - I do usually have a marathon mix for the actual race, but I use it as a sort of...power boost that I'm not used to so that for the difficult times of the race I have something fun to fall back on. So when I run on my own without anyone to chat with, the scenery and people watching are the distractions that get me through the run. We have a very large homeless population here by the beach, and many of them get pretty creative in terms of asking for money or setting up their little homes. This morning, one gent was making his own living room carved out of sand, down to lamps mounted in strategic spots. Another had left his or her camp all set up on a grassy knoll unsupervised with a sign that read "testing the kindness of humanity".

The run itself was good, pain-free and I even got a few moments of runner's-high in the middle. Unfortunately it didn't last long because someone started feeding the sea gulls nearby which gets them into a horrifying frenzy and I got a little traumatized having to run under the hovering flock squawking and diving for bread crumbs all around me. Don't. Feed. The. Birds. People!! Gross.

I accidentally turned around a touch too early so didn't make it a full five miles but I'll take it.

today's run:  4.9 miles
season mileage to date: 61.1 miles