While I'm not someone who frequently socializes with my friends, I have a lot of people who I really like, but I don't necessarily see all that often. These people are spread out all over the country, and I have this sense that if I gathered them all together in one place, most of them would really like each other. (And most, but not all, of them would have running in common.) When I worked at running camp a couple weeks ago, I added another person to this group. We had only e-mailed each other a couple times before camp, but we were instantly able to chat for hours. Since she doesn't live that far away, I was able to run with her this morning. It was my first run with company since I moved back to Amherst, and though my legs are still feeling surprisingly sluggish post-Falmouth, the company made the run fly by.
Since I've been feeling pretty awful this week, I've decided just to focus on mileage this week and next. I'd been making my training up as I went until now, but now I'm considering doing the training that my team does this season, which wouldn't mean starting workouts again until the week after next. I like this because it will help me evaluate the effectiveness of the training for someone like me, and I'll be able to compare it to what I've done in the past. It'll also help me get a sense of what the athletes are going through. It might not be practical to use all of the same training venues, but if they have a tempo run or repeat miles on the schedule, I would do the same thing that morning, on my own. I figure that this will get me to stick to a plan, and it's easier for me to do that when I'm following someone else's training program, rather than my own, which sometimes allows for too much questioning and revising.
Other than that, things have finally gotten a little quiet around here, which is nice. My trip back from Falmouth was made more interesting than I would like by the fact that between Medford and Amherst, I got a flat tire. I had never gotten one before, so my first instinct was that my muffler was dragging (the metal on pavement noise), but as I pulled off to the side of the highway and the rubber part of my back tire went rolling into the brush on the side of the road, that clued me in. My AAA membership had expired, but my mother was able to use her membership to bail me out. It still involved 30-40 minutes of waiting along Route 2 as the sun went down, hoping that no one would hit my car. Yes, I should know how to change a tire, but even if I did, I'd have a fear that I wouldn't put it on properly and I'd cause even bigger problems. So if I'm not going to learn how to change a tire, I should at least have a better backup plan in the future. Luckily there were no other problems with the car so one new tire later, my car is functioning fine. I'm actually pretty impressed that tires are as durable as they are, and that I've only had one flat in about 15 years of driving.
And there's no good transition to this other story, but my (fraternal twin) sister, C, called yesterday to tell me about it. She lives about 90 minutes away from me and she was standing in line for an event the other night when someone started walking toward her looking really excited. C didn't recognize this person, so C figured she was headed toward someone behind her. As this person approached C, she said, "You're Alison's twin, aren't you?" And, "I was about to give you a hug, but then I realized you have no idea who I am." It turned out it was someone who I had coached when she was in high school. C ended the story with, "Well, she was really excited to see 'you.'" I don't think we look that much alike, but apparently it's enough. This is the second time that something like this has happened in C's small town. Another runner who I used to coach now lives there and she occasionally reports sightings of someone who looks like me...but I warned her in advance, so she knows it's not me.