It was such a lovely fall day in the park today, I decided to allow myself a somewhat longer run and screw whatever is going on with my heel. As I sit here now icing the damn thing, I'm wondering about the wisdom of that course of action, but I don't think it would really feel appreciably different if I'd only done four miles instead of nine. Jack's in the midwest this weekend and he reports that Winter temperatures are headed my way, so it seemed like too much of a waste not to enjoy a long, leisurely jog through the amber sunshine and saffron leaves. It was somewhat encouraging that my "leisurely" pace wasn't much off of 8:30, so while I did feel a little more fatigued that I should normally, that's really nothing to complain about.
The only real annoyance out there today came in the form of two 20-something guys who were walking along the bridle path, making really loud off-color, sexual comments about runners as they went by. 
I could hear them yelling stuff out from a ways back and it was making me nervous. I couldn't tell what they were saying though, so I didn't change course. Their little comment for me wasn't really that bad and actually, wasn't even accurate, but still, it definitely felt like a violation of my sacred running space. I was mostly surprised by how angry I felt and was a little disturbed that my first thought was a violent one. It's probably a good thing that I don't own a gun, since in that moment I had a quite vivid image of myself shooting the guy in the chest as I went by. And you thought I was a sweet, little girl...
Tomorrow though, I guess I'll be out there in the rain and I'll have the park back to myself. Just me and the mud and the pain in my foot. Just me and my shoes that need replacing and my worries about facing another training cycle and finding a new job and trying to be happy in this world.
The athletic group KIMbia posted a contest for the chance to win a trip to Kenya to write about the training camp there. The winner would be able to run and train there as well, but more than that, they would be able to see and experience how it is to be from this place and what challenges and obstacles the people there face that we can hardly imagine in our over-processed, copyrighted, freeze-dried existance here. I guess I let myself get a little dreamy-eyed and wistful about the opportunity and I sent my entry into the ether with a overwhelming sense that this might be just the thing to jumpstart my stalled professional life and bump me off the stymied rails of my current career. I guess I indulged in a bit too much pre-hatched chicken counting though, since they announced nineteen names today from whom 5 finalists will be chosen and my name wasn't there. I checked three or four times, it definitely isn't. It's somewhat comforting to see a couple of other names there of people I "know", but it doesn't really take away the sting of disappointment. I'm wishing now that I'd written my entry a bit more poetically than I did, but there's really no point in second-guessing the process now and from reading the little teases from other people's entries, I'm hardly the only person feeling a little lost in the woods. Guess this just means I'm going to have to figure this next part out on my own.