Today I was exhausted. I woke up with a headache at 5:20 AM and turned the alarm to off. No 9 mile tempo run up and down that Cliff Drive hill with SBRR for me today. I was going to have to go it alone.
And, go it alone I did... but not until 2:30 in the afternoon. And, the nice flat bike path out to Goleta beach and back was about all this tight hip could handle at a 7:35ish tempo anyway... ugh.
All was well until about mile 5 of the tempo. After a short warm up I had started my tempo run from the mile mark line just over the bridge on Nueces Drive and turned around at the mark at Goleta Beach. When I reached that mile mark at the mobile home park heading back toward town my hip tightened up and my jaw got all tight right with it. It wasn't fun anymore. What was worse was I had no one to complain to or pull me along. I decided to run in the dirt along the path. The bike path was ultra crowded and well... I thought maybe the dirt might go easier on the hip.
Things were looking up. I started to relax. Then, to the right of me a voice almost yelled in my ear something about motorcycles and pollution. It was a drunk guy on a bike riding in the dirt beside me. I tried to ignore him but he would have none of that. I went up onto the bike path just at the 1 3/4 mark before crossing Patterson. He stayed on the dirt side by side with me. I had to tell him to please go away. I don't recall everything he said. I can't express the heebeejeebee feeling of how he was looking at me. But I do know that I had to get him away from me because I obviously wasn't going to out run him. Finally, I just said something like, " I am working really hard here and I need to focus. Can you please go away....NOW!" His reply as he mumbled away was that I was a mean old lady.
Yup. I am a mean old lady. I stayed on the bike path and didn't venture onto the dirt side for fear of him reappearing. So, me and my old lady hip just got the job done and hobbled home. I guess I am glad that I am now a mean old lady.
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