Running update: I hate the road. QUICKLY.

I have a list of things to post about, but all of them require photos, so instead of those you get this: I'm still running.

HOORAY, I know.

But it is actually not the most useless topic for me to post about since some of you might still care about running even though I haven't talked about it in ages. And I've talked about training even less, so there you go. Be happy that I'm coming back around to this topic at all because if I weren't I'd be veering off in a new disgusting direction called, "I'm a fat ass and can't fit into my jeans. Send gin."

Yes, people, despite what some other running blogs may claim (because they are written by liars. Fit, fast ab-having liars), I run because it keeps the fatness at bay. It doesn't necessarily usher in the era of visible abs or toned ass cheeks, but it at least keeps me in my jeans and lets me wear shorts during the months of the year which Bubba has deemed acceptable for me to be in them.

He gives me mean looks when I trot them out in December with my flip-flops because he obviously wants to crush my soul.

Whatever. I love my shorts. And flip-flops. And tank tops. And I also love bikinis, but we haven't quite found the right combination of running, strength training, not drinking a dozen cocktails a week and race fries to solve for that equation, so I'm sticking really close to my shorts and tank tops in the hopes that one day the stars will align and I'll be able to put on one of my many bikinis (not looking like Jennifer Aniston has not deterred me from buying 100 bikinis) and not shriek in horror.

And so I run.

Except when I do a trail race and roll the ever loving fuck out of my ankle to the point of an audible meaty crunch. Then I sit the sidelines for a few weeks until the persistent gnawing pain subsides enough for a quiet run sans-Garmin/speed goals. Then I run all quiet and gentle like for another week to make sure that the painlessness has settled in enough to go back out with the Garmin and dreams of 23 minute interval runs and sub-60 6 mile runs on the weekend.

BUT ONLY THEN. Not sooner. And it's a bit of sweet annoying torture to sit the bench when you know all the while that the longer you wait before going back out the more painful it's going to be and the more likely it is that your shorts will stop fitting right because your Ab Hider 5000 (AKA belly) will re-emerge right when you were getting ready for Shorts Acceptable weather.

So, as you can see, training while recovering from an injury is a tedious process.

And that's where I'm at right now. Front and center in Tedious Race Training for the upcoming Wharf to Wharf in July.

A 10K race held on a road even though I said to you guys and, more importantly, TO ME, that I would stop racing on roads because I hate it and even more than I hate racing on the road, I hate training on the road because people always try to hit you with their cars because they're way too interested in drinking their Starbucks, beating their backseated children or checking the game on their iPhone to watch out for reflectively dressed runners just trying to get in a quick 6 miles before it becomes monstrously hot in San Jose, CA.

My hatred is very specific.

Also, training on my city's roads is suffocatingly boring. OH MY GOD is it boring. I can change up my route all I want, wear a costume, sing out loud in the faces of babies, give everyone the finger, pull candy from my pants, do intervals of skipping and hula hooping and STILL it would crush my soul with its boringness.

I've become very attached to my trail runs, folks, and man does it show when I have to go out and run the roads.

Based on the looks I get from oncoming runners, I don't seem happy or approachable. That whole, "We're all in this together" vibe that I used to occasionally experience has gone out the window. I'm definitely projecting a, "What the fuck am I doing here?" vibe and it doesn't sit well with all these fast and apparently content runners who are out trotting our city's streets with a pleasant look on their sweaty faces.

Perhaps they haven't been nearly creamed by a minivan yet. Or perhaps they've never experienced the sheer joy of sprinting down a mossy shaded trail protected overhead by a thick canopy of trees.

Either way - we're not the same anymore. I don't understand you people and I barely understand me.

The only reason I can come up with - as to why we're all out running the streets instead of some lovely trail through the woods or along the coast - is that we're all trying to defend some road-based PR for some road-based race that we signed up for without flipping on that important Brain switch before hitting "Register".

I mean, I have my sub-60 10K PR. I got it a year ago and I thought I was going to hang that up forever.

10K - 58:15. Done. Forever.

But, no. I signed up for another 10K and I just can't go out there and fail my PR because then I'd start thinking bad things about myself and then I'd have a lot of cocktails and then HOLY SHIT what are my jeans doing with that giant blob obscuring the belt loops ohmygoditsmybelly.

You see the vicious circle I've created for myself then, yes?

So, I'm training for this 10K. On the road. And I'm not running in the hills because I don't have time from all this running on the road business. And it's yucky. And I'm mad at myself for signing up for a road race even though it's supposed to be one of those races that *everyone who's ever called themselves a runner* does. And even though last weekend I went out to do my first training run in preparation for this race after meatily crunching my ankle running in the blessed hills and BAM...

Killed it in 56:15.

Oh HOT DAMN.

Then, just before that, I did my 2.5M interval training run in 23:05, which is 2 seconds faster than my fastest interval training run ever.

HOTTEST DAMN.

It's funny how I'm suddenly sorta almost maybe looking forward to next Saturday's long run because this week's didn't suck as mightily bad in the time department as I thought it would.

Yeah, funny that.