*sings* She was lookin' kind of dumb...

...with her finger and her thumb in the shape of an L on her forehead...

Yeah, I get the big ol' LOSER stamp because I did not do my strength training yesterday, nor did I blog. Oh, the agony of it!

This morning, though, I continued to enjoy temperatures above freezing (YAY!) and did a buddy run with some very nice fellow TNTers. There was Kelli, who just ran a marathon last weekend (I am in awe!), Angela and Lindsey, who live maybe half an hour away, and Elizabeth, whose house is so close I could run to it without breaking a sweat. The trail was still snowy and icy, so we decided to just run on the road. Unfortunately, since we weren't on the trail, we had no mile markers to look at, so we didn't know when to turn around. I kept shouting moronic-sounding questions at the runners we encountered going the other way: "How far is 2 miles from here?" I was able to time us with my watch, at least.

Something happened on this run that will probably never ever happen again in my LIFE: I was the rabbit! (The rabbit is the one who tears off the starting line at a race and leads the pack for a while, although he/she (okay, probably a he) usually burns out and fades well before the race is over.) For me to be the fastest of any group of runners is pretty mind-boggling, although remember, Kelli ran a marathon last weekend, and one of us was in a lot of pain from shin splints. I kept stopping to walk to let the others catch up, and we waited a bit at the turn-around point and stretched before running back to complete our loop in 48 minutes and 36 seconds. I was sure we'd only covered 3 miles or so, but when I got home and plugged our route into gmaps pedometer, it said we ran 4.16 miles!! That means we ran at a surprisingly decent 11:41 per mile pace. I did not feel winded at all at the end of this run, so I guess the training effect is starting to kick in. (It's about bleepin' time.)

Despite my hearty pre-run breakfast (two scrambled eggs, a piece of buttered toast, and a bowl of steel-cut oats with blueberries, pecans, and brown sugar--I am so NOT one of those people who can't eat before a run!), I was definitely interested in joining the others for a bagel and coffee afterwards. I devoured a delectable french toast bagel with maple cream cheese... mmmmmmmm, cream cheese. [/homersimpson] Kelli and Elizabeth and I chatted for a while, and then Kelli reminded us that we were right around the corner from a local running store.

This is when my raging case of RGAD (Running Gear Acquisition Disorder) made itself felt once more. It started off innocently enough: I DID still need running gloves--I asked for them for Christmas but did not get them. My Mizuno Breath Thermo pants (which I did get for Christmas) are absolutely wonderful, so I decided to purchase a pair of "matching" Mizuno Breath Thermo gloves:
Aren't they lovely? I can't wait to wear them to the group run tomorrow.

But then things went downhill. There was a big rack marked "50% off" that I couldn't help but look through. There were lots of things in my size, so it was inevitable that I ended up with a new shirt:
Aaaaaand a pair of Saucony shorts. RGAD rears its ugly head yet again!
These are the first shorts I've ever had that have their own liner. Do you just go commando under them or what? I'll have to tap into the wisdom of the Internets on this one...