Tuesday evening, you would have found me at my desk on FB putting out a pitiful plea for somebody\/anybody willing to run all or part of a 20 miler with me the next morning.<\/p>\n
I really didn’t expect a response. \u00a0I was basically just whining about running. \u00a0I was tired and knew that 20 the next day was going to be difficult.<\/p>\n
Imagine my surprise when two of my Mississippi running buddies jumped at the opportunity to run with me! \u00a0Two people, who I consider to be amazing runners, ran 12 of my 20 with me yesterday. \u00a0This was my last run of 2014.<\/p>\n
Normally, I run a little bit here and then a little bit there. \u00a0I go all over the place near our home. \u00a0I needed a change of scenery. \u00a0With some company, I felt comfortable heading a bit further away from the house. \u00a0So…<\/p>\n
I left my house and ran all the way to a 4 lane divided highway. \u00a0Highway 45 south. \u00a0When I arrived \u00a0at 45S, I crossed the highway and started heading north on the west side of the highway. \u00a0After 5 miles, I met up with my friends at a Chevron station by the frontage road<\/p>\n
This frontage road runs parallel to Highway 82.<\/p>\n
The three of us ran 6 miles on this road~all the way the the exit for the local airport. \u00a0Once we reach the top of the exit, we turned around and retraced our steps heading back to the Chevron station. \u00a012 miles.<\/p>\n
I left my friends at the Chevron station and crossed 45S again, this time running on the east side of the highway heading south back towards home.<\/p>\n
Now, the frontage road didn’t have much traffic on it at all. \u00a0It’s just a frontage road. \u00a045S, however, that was an entirely different story. \u00a0Wowza!<\/p>\n
On my way to the Chevron station, I soon discovered that they weren’t too generous with the asphalt when they made the highway. \u00a0There was enough asphalt for the two lanes and the rumble strips. \u00a0That was it. \u00a0I had to run on the gravely\/grassy shoulder of the road the entire way.<\/p>\n
There is a lot of logging traffic on this road. \u00a0Well, there is a lot of traffic, period, but a LOT of logging trucks. \u00a0Those guys don’t watch for runners (Duh) and don’t make any concessions for the runner either.<\/p>\n
When I am running in heavy traffic, well, first of all, I wear very high visibility clothing. \u00a0You can see me coming a mile away my clothing is so bright. \u00a0Secondly, I wave and every car heading towards me. \u00a0This tends to snap them out of their highway hypnosis and makes them pay a bit more attention to what is going on around them.<\/p>\n
Those logging trucks, though, man~they could care less.<\/p>\n
I was only a half mile into running on 45S when the first logging truck blew by me. \u00a0The next thing I knew, I was being blown backwards by the truck. \u00a0It is a 55 mph speed zone here but that guy was going a lot faster than 55. \u00a0That’s when I realized that my visor was gone.<\/p>\n
Rats!<\/p>\n
I looked around and there was my visor being blown merrily down a hill. \u00a0Boo. \u00a0I was faced with a dilemma. \u00a0I had my friends who were going to be waiting for me at the Chevron station but doggone it! \u00a0That visor cost me $30.00! \u00a0I ended up chasing my visor. \u00a0#IamCheap<\/p>\n
After that, whenever a truck came along, I held onto that visor. \u00a0One chase was enough for me.<\/p>\n
Looking at things along the side of a highway was interesting! \u00a0I saw lots and lots of broken glass. \u00a0There was still a lot of cotton along the side of the road that had blown off the trucks and it was being taken to the cotton gins. \u00a0I saw a baby receiving blanket in the middle of the highway! \u00a0That was interesting. \u00a0Lots of roadkill, too. \u00a0I tried to step around that. \u00a0Icky.<\/p>\n
And of course, there were lots of smaller logs and branches that had fallen off those logging trucks.<\/p>\n
45S has one large bridge. \u00a0Up. Up. Up. Up and then finally, Down. \u00a0Down. \u00a0Down. \u00a0Down.<\/p>\n
I got to do that coming and going. \u00a0Whee!<\/p>\n
My training program called for 20 miles yesterday. \u00a0When I reached 20 miles on my Garmin yesterday, I stopped. \u00a0I wasn’t home yet but I stopped.<\/p>\n
I am tired. \u00a0I don’t want to risk injury. \u00a0I called home and told there where I was and walked until my ride came and picked me up.<\/p>\n
Running with my two friends made what could have been the run from hell a lot of fun! \u00a0The 12 miles with them in the middle was perfect! \u00a0Having to stay on my toes on 45S made the rest of it pretty easy, too! \u00a0What an awesome run!!!<\/p>\n
My monthly running total for December was 216 miles.<\/p>\n
My yearly mileage total for 2014 was 1657.58 miles.<\/p>\n
Goal for 2015 is 2015 miles. \u00a0Got started on that this morning with a nice 6 miler with MFH (My Favorite Husband). \u00a0Rest day tomorrow and then Saturday, right back at it!<\/p>\n
Happy New Year, all!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tuesday evening, you would have found me at my desk on FB putting out a pitiful plea for somebody\/anybody willing to run all or part of a 20 miler with me the next morning. I really didn’t expect a response. \u00a0I was basically just whining about running. \u00a0I was tired and knew that 20 the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,8,3,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2811"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2811"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2812,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2811\/revisions\/2812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/TM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}