Week 4

Let's review:

Monday

Legs are sore from yesterday's "long" run.  Rest day.

Tuesday
Storm of the century coming tonight, legs still somewhat sore.  Let's just rest again.

Wednesday

Shovel snow for hours and hours on end.  I think I was out there around 5 hours.  From the marathon training perspective, this was another rest day.  Right.

Thursday
Never been so sore in my life.  Lower back is screaming.  No chance in hell I'm running today.  Rest day.

Friday

Let's see, three runs per week, three days left in the week, zero runs so far this week, looks like I need to run today.  So after a shitty morning at work I suit up and head out for a lunch run, three miles in and it's time to turn around and go back or do a loop of the arboretum first.  Arboretum wins, let's just turn this into my long run for the week.

Karma, as it turns out, would come back and bite me for this little decision.  No wait, it wasn't karma, it was a little dog.

On my way back I'm coming down a long section of sidewalk with no driveways in sight.  There is an older woman walking towards me with three dogs, each on it's own 8' leash.  Jack Russel type mutts.  Remember the storm of the century.  The sidewalk is 4' wide, with 3' walls of snow on each side, I have nowhere to go.

She does absolutely nothing to bring her dogs in while we close the distance between us.  I end up coming to a complete stop when one of these little things attempts to take a chunk out of my leg.  Now it is winter in Wisconsin, I'm dressed for it, the dog didn't come anywhere close to skin, but now I'm pissed.

The woman offers nothing in the way of an apology, does nothing to pull her dogs away.  Deep breath, I say nothing, and start running again.  Why?  I think Ron White says it best:

At this point in my life I'm realizing there is just no hope for some, you can't fix stupid, and I'm tired of wasting my breath on them.  The rest of the run was largely uneventful, although the wheels did come off at 9 miles and I ended up kind of run/walking back to the office.

Saturday

Back in Stoughton, running with my own dog, because I really do love dogs, it's the owners I can't stand.  Uneventful 6 miles.

Sunday

Stoughton again, this time dogless, for the time being.  I find myself running up Lincoln on the sidewalk, northbound.  When two little Taco Bell type dogs come out of nowhere in a ladies front yard and assault me.  Bit again, but again I'm dressed for Wisconsin winter and I'm not hurt.  But the woman at the house, looking annoyed because I interrupted her phone call, nonchalantly calling her dogs, offering no apologies, really pisses me off.  Don't waste your breath, just keep running, you can't fix stupid.

Recap

So despite a pretty major midweek storm I got all my runs done, outside, in Wisconsin, in February.  Three consecutive days, three runs, just shy of 22 miles.  And Monday it once again hurts to walk.  Shins mainly.  Apparently Ron is right, you can't fix stupid.