Eating Toast in the Shower

It all started when I blew a fuse in my bathroom.  Then yada yada yada happened and before I knew it I was eating toast in the shower.  You try to explain that one.  Fine, I'll give you a run down of how these two events are connected.

I was meeting my 100 miler coach, Brenden Huber, to go for our Sunday long run.  We were supposed to meet at 2:00pm.  It was 1:57 and I was scrambling; I ran into my bathroom and flipped on the light.  BOOM.  A flash of light and then blackness.  The fuse had blown.  So I shot a quick text to Hubey telling him I was going to be ten minutes late, went over to the breaker box and reset the fuse.  This is seems so unimportant, yet turns out to be the heart behind this blog post.  Ten minutes late, at 2:10pm, we started our 16 mile run in and around St. Peter.  For those of you who know the area, bare with me while I give a brief run down of the location of this wonderful town.  St. Peter is in a river valley with the Minnesota River flowing through.  You have Gustavus Adolphus College on the top of one side and farmland on the top of the other side.  It's a gorgeous location minus the hills in the winter and the wonderful St. Peter wind that, as my mom states, "cuts through your soul" and reminds her of "walking to school in Detroit in skirts (since she wasn't allowed to wear pants)." #NavyBratLife

For our run, we started by headed east on 99 up the side of the valley towards Faribault, before turning off to head to the golf course, then dropping back into St. Peter on 22.  We then headed out 99 to the west up the other side of the valley towards New Ulm, then cut across on some back road, parallel to 169, towards the little town of Traverse, before, for all intents and purposes, meeting back up with 22.  Now, there is snow on the roads so the footing wasn't fantastic but we made it up both sides of the valley and on this unnamed backroad where we were feeling really good, both physically and mentally.  Granted, we had to run down the double yellow line to avoid the snow drifts, but in the grand scheme of winter runs in Minnesota this wasn't so bad.  Ultimately, for this long run we had picked a pace where we could chat the whole way without breathlessness so it was the equivalent of hanging out for an afternoon on the couch.

For those of you who do not run outside much, it's definitely amazing how few clothes you need to wear in the winter.  For this run, the weather was a balmy 23 with a 10-15mph wind and I wore long spandex, an underarmour long sleeve, a tshirt and a very light running jacket with running gloves, a fleece neck warmer and a winter hat.  By mile 6, I had already sweated through my running jacket. By mile 7 I took off my gloves storing them away, inside out and in a small sweaty ball, in my jacket pockets.  By mile 8 there was nothing acceptable left for me to take off so I just kept running.

 Now, on this unnamed backroad, we were cruising.   We could have run for another ten miles but didn't say it out loud to each other in hopes of not jinxing it... too late, I guess thinking the thought was enough to shift the universe.  As we turned to meet up with 22, a mere two and a half miles from The Rock (our apartment complex), the sun disappeared, the wind  picked up to a constant 25mph and shifted directly at our faces and the yellow line we were following to avoid the snow drifts, was now buried underneath them.  It got cold.  My face hurt.  My hands started to freeze, so I quickly snatched my gloves out of my pocket but they were crumpled into a frozen ball of sweat.  Awesome.  Leaving my hands out to the elements, I desperately tried to de-ball these gloves while avoiding snow drift after snow drift that made me, at times, look and feel quite unathletic.  Eventually, I shoved my now frozen, dry and wind burned hands into these gloves, which were frozen themselves so I'm not sure how much good they actually did. With our heads down we plugged away, one foot in front of the next, singing "I'm coming home" by JCole until we finally reached The Rock, happy those last 2 1/2 miles were done and over with. #characterbuilding

2 hours 14 minutes later, our longest run together was completed.  We averaged a relaxed 8:15 minute mile.

Following our quick cool down, it was about 4:40pm and we were supposed to be at a co-workers house to make homemade pizza at 5:30pm and we still needed to swing by the grocery store. Eeek.  We were docked to leave The Rock at 5:10pm. I was shivering from sweating and now walking in below freezing temperatures so immediately ran inside thinking about all the things I needed to do in a mere 30 minutes...  Eat during my diminishing 30 minute window of post-run time, shower, blow dry my hair, get dressed and stretch.  I quickly realized multi tasking was going to be necessary.  I threw some bread in the toaster, while that was crisping up I chugged some water, quickly buttered the toast then ran into the bathroom to warm up the shower (which is only a stand up shower, so it's a small confined space).  Alas, the point of the story you have all been waiting for, once the water was hot, I hopped in, bread in hand, to warm up, clean up and eat up, thus the title "eating bread in the shower."  This is one more event I can add to the list of reasons why I am now a true runner.  I so wished that bread was a beer. #whycan'trunnersbenormal

In conclusion, we didn't make it to our co-workers house until 5:40pm, but you can't dispute the effort.