When It Don't Come Easy

I guess my body didn't really want to run tonight.

There are times when running is more of an effort, but most of the time I can just plow ahead and get over it. Soon enough I'm feeling fine or at least well enough to finish the run. Tonight wasn't one of those nights. I felt it in the very first step.

It wasn't that anything hurt. My legs felt fine. Instead it was as if my whole body was throwing a tantrum and was refusing to cooperate. It was sitting this run out and I was going to have to force myself to finish. I ran a more casual pace but even then I had to take some walk breaks just to gather myself and summon some saved up energy to finish. If it wasn't for the fact that the marathon is this weekend I probably would have sat tonight out, but instead I went for a late evening 6 mile run (10pm). I probably won't have an opportunity to run again until Thursday, so I felt like I needed to get a good long run in tonight. I hope that the issue is just that I'm tired from my run yesterday. More likely, though, is that it was just one of those nights. The body says no. I got through it, though, so that counts for something.

As I mentioned the race is this weekend and I'm excited. Not about the race so much but about being in San Francisco and sorta getting away for the weekend. It looks like all my meals are pretty much planned with some good eats. I guess it's a good thing I'll be burning 3,000 calories on Sunday.

Lastly, tonight I played trivia at Casey's all by my lonesome and I almost won! I came in second, beating out teams who had as many as six people. Had I been more confident and used the "Double or Nothing" option at least one more time, I probably would have won. Instead I played it a little conservatively in the first two rounds even though as it turned out I was right on all those answers. The host likes to draw attention to these things, so I had to suffer through looks--albeit impressed stares--as I claimed my second place prize. For the free drink round, each team had to send a member up (which meant I had to go up) and we played an elimination round where we each took turns naming universities and which division they were in (ex. UCLA/Pac-10). I surely thought I would lose this round--and I did--but I was surprised to find myself one of the last two. I was only confident about Pac 10 and Big 10 teams, so I decided that I would only name Pac 10 teams. Surprisingly it worked. Others were probably showing off and named teams from different divisions. I got eliminated because I repeated a school someone had already said. I didn't realize it had been said before. I doubt I would have won anyway since the other guy seemed to know the make-up of all the divisions. Still, I did better than I expected in that round, but it also marked the first time I have lost the Free Drink round.

More trivia on Wednesday as we play the third week of the tournament qualifying at Sardo's. It's not looking good for us, though. Competition at Sardo's is stiff and the winning teams have been scoring at least 120 points. For us to have any chance we would have to win the next two weeks. It's possible but unlikely.