south of the loop

I went for my first Mini training run yesterday—four miles in the snow!

The Mini—which is a half-marathon, and I take great issue with the word “mini” being used in association with “13.1 miles”—is in early May in Indianapolis as part of the Indy 500 festivities. I ran it in 2005 and had a blast, so I’m pretty excited about running it again. Nevertheless, there’s definitely a fear and intimidation factor, especially on that first training run. I haven’t run at all in at least three or four weeks because the cold has been too much for me, so yesterday morning I felt as much anxiety as I did excitement.

Four miles is a long first run, but we kept a slow, steady pace, and the snow on the ground was actually a great shock-absorber, crunching in time with our pace. We ran along the lake path on the north side of the city, and everything was bright, bright, white. We passed a guy with a large stroller with pugs stacked two high inside of it. He had a third pug with him, shivering a bit on the ground, and who probably joined the Jenga stack after he took care of his business. We passed an impromptu dog park, with a dozen or more dogs sprinting in circles in the snow, plowing it with their noses, happily playing in the white shit.

I felt pretty good after the run, and even a little bit badass. I mean, four miles? At 7:30 in the morning? In the snow? That’s pretty awesome. And I’m glad it went well, because now I know I can do it again and can really look forward to the rest of the training runs.

* * *

current book: I’m still catching up on magazines. Will hopefully start High Tide in Tucson tomorrow.

current music: I’ve been listening to CocoRosie’s La maison de mon rêve. They are so weird, but I kind of love them.

current socks: Red with horseshoes.

Posted 18 February 2007

Filed under: chicago, running by admin2

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