Sunday, June 3

Dry humor & sweet rewards

Yesterday I went out for a long run, and some funny things happened in that 2.5 hours.

Frozen assets:
Normally I head out the door with a frozen water bottle. In Florida summer heat the bottle melts by mile 3. By mile 4 it's bath-water warm (which is as gross as it sounds).

So I (finally) realized that if I run my first mile or two as a loop from home, I can leave the bottle in the freezer and pick it up mid-run. Brilliant!
"Licking blocks of ice on a hot day." Refreshing but disturbing?
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This is the first time in more than a year that I've had cold water past mile 5.
(Should I be glad I thought of this trick? Or disappointed that it has taken me so long to figure it out?)

Sweet rewards:
90 minutes into the run, my water supply was running low, as expected. I planned to stop at home for a refill, so I decided it was a good time to head back in that direction.

As soon as I turned toward home, I saw a yard sale in full-swing. I scanned the odds and ends, and was about to keep going when, lo and behold - buried among the tchotchkes was... (do my eyes deceive me? is it a mirage?) a lemonade stand!
5-cent lemonade.
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It always makes me smile to see little kids selling lemonade, but under the circumstances, this stand was particularly sweet.

Thankfully I always run with a couple of bucks tucked into a pocket. I handed over a sweaty $1 in exchange for a 50-cent cup of lemonade and told the budding entrepreneur to keep the change. It was a small price to pay for not hearing "eww gross" about my sweatiness a refreshment that made the next couple of miles much, much easier. (Plus, who wants to run with loose change jingling in a pocket?)

Dry humor:
Still, I needed more water.
Eventually I made my way home for a pit stop, where I sweet-talked Hubby into joining me for the last 3 miles.

Hubby runs faster than me.
Hubby runs much faster when I'm into double-digit miles and he's on fresh legs.

I wasn't about to risk injury by trying to keep up with his 5k pace after my half-marathon run. And he wasn't about to shuffle just for the sake of shuffling.

So what did he do?

He ran circles around me.
Literally.

It was hilarious.
(Maybe I was giddy from dehydration? Maybe that little girl spiked the lemonade? Either way - I can't remember the last time I got the giggles during a long run the way I did every time Hubby would lap me.)
Nothing beats a belly laugh.
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Hubby would sprint ahead a block or two, trot back, circle me, and repeat.
And I would chuckle every time.

Under other circumstances, I might have been peeved that Hubby was running laps around me. But yesterday it worked. Hubby got a solid interval workout. I got company for the (always hardest) last few miles of my long run. And we both got a good laugh out of it.

When is the last time you bought lemonade from a child at a roadside stand?
What's your most recent belly-laugh moment?

3 comments:

  1. Aw....at least he didn't run backwards in front of you. I hate it wen fast friends do that.

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  2. haha that is awesome. I love the fact that you found a lemonade stand (YAY!!) and Hubby doing laps around you sounds hilarious. :)

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  3. Oh, man! I haven't seen a lemonade stand in years. I think that must be a good omen for a summer of running for you.

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