What Have You Done Today To Make You Feel Proud?

So I've been doing a lot of road running in the Compton Hood over here on the WEST side. Shaunmarie and I were scheduled for a long run up at Germantown Road on Saturday. But lo and behold people kept calling to say they were coming over to visit and watch the football game. So we had an impromptu "Seahawks Get Their Ass Kicked in the Snow" party.

So the long run was off, but I still managed to get in four miles before anyone got here. It felt good, but I can totally tell that my legs are not enjoying the hard asphalt and cement. So, I wore my Donovan McNabb jersey as I realized it was probably going to be one of the last times I could wear it while he is still an Eagle. I got some very nice comments on my weight loss (I've trained my friends to tell me it looks like I lost weight. It's a bad habit I've gotten in to. I need validation, people!) and then decided to gorge myself, because I had just run. My favorite thing to eat? The port wine "cheese food" that comes in a little tub, is bright orange and has some purpleness to it. That shit is the bomb. I ate that and artichoke dip and another hot dip and nuts and beer. Holy cow it was gluttony at its finest.

Then yesterday I had one of the best runs ever. I ran in the hood again. Usually this run contains some track running down at the ol' Oregon Episcopal School. Well yesterday there was some sort of lacrosse thing going on and there was no way I was going to run in front of high schoolers and spectators. So I figured out how to get to the Montclair Elementary school wood-chipped path.

This is where it all began in late June when I started my post partum, weight loss, running journey. I would hike up my ol' maternity shorts (a nice cotton number that fit like bike shorts with a belly panel) and my Grateful Dead t-shirt from 1988 [LA in the velodrome] that I stole from an ex-boyfriend (this thing is ancient. You can totally see through it it's so threadbare...but it was the only thing that fit me) and run a 14 minute mile. Just one mile because that's all I could do. And I ran almost every day in the noon day sun, singing the Biggest Loser theme song and telling myself that come Christmas it would all be worth it.

So yesterday as I'm running around that path like I own it without worrying about the slight grade that had previously killed me every single run, I realized it was worth it. And I was again proud to be a runner. Because, I thought, not everyone can be a runner. And then I thought, yes they can. Because if I could go from a pack-a-day fat smoker to running as much as I do now, ANYONE can do it. We just like to thing we're part of a special breed. But that's really not true.

I am TOTALLY digressing now. Anyhoo. It was a great run of 6.25 miles in 1 hour. Here's Oliver with his first zwieback toast experience.