Monday is usually a strength training day for me, but after my brief wake-up yoga session I hauled it to work and then at 1 o`clock the Fish Family was in the car to head to the beautiful, sunny, warm south of France for a week with Mr. Fish’s brother and family. Hourrah, shouted the Shellyfish, warm weather, running without layers of mittens, hats, scarves, fleece tops, etc.
Sunny. Warm. Let’s try sleet, hail, pelting rain, and gale-force winds. Oh, did I forget unseasonably low freezing temps? Uh huh.
We got in Monday night and my very cool, extremely sweet brother-in-law who is pushing 50 and is not at all athletic (but who used to run occasionally) stepped up when I mentioned at the dinner table that I wanted to look at Map My Run for my running route for my Tuesday morning run, would he look with me to let me know if it was a good route, etc. Not only did he look with me, but he informed me he’d be joining me on my first loop of the route to show me the way! I was floored, and a little nervous, because doing over 3.5 miles after doing nothing for so long was, well, dangerous to say the least. He quit smoking and has greatly reduced his wine intake since about a year ago when he was confronted with some nasty health issues (though he is doing great now), and was excited about trying out his “new” lungs with a run.
I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit to being a little nervous- I didn’t want him to get hurt or have a problem and try to “push through” because he was with me.
I’m very proud of my beau-frère who managed his 3.5 miles in 39mins, and we only stopped twice for maybe 20 yards of walking for him to catch his breath. He did a fabulous job, and this in unseasonably bitter, brutal wind and, get this, rain! It was 2c when we left the house, began raining about 20 minutes into the run, and we were against the wind the entire time (which should be an impossibility, but we are having a series of freak wind storms, and it’s true!).
I continued on for a second loop and much to my delight it began to hail and pelting sleet actually burned my face. I didn’t know it was possible, but by noon I had red/purple welts on my cheeks which stopped exactly where the elastic on my wind-breaker’s hood started. During my solo loop the temps dropped to -4. Lovely.
Last week it was over 25c here. And sunny. No wind.
Buy hey, we came for the family, right? Not for le temps…
The difficult thing really about being here is being able to step back and say, hey, it’s ok if you can’t do any strength training because everyone is all together and there is no place to do it even if you’d brought your weights. It’s pas grave if your yoga practice is on hiatus for a few days.
The important thing is hanging with the very cool family.
Pingback: Vegan MoFo Day 3 - We Have Our Winners! We Have Cookies! « Musings From The Fishbowl