Its a Beautiful Day!

Oddly, I woke up this morning at about 7am, after going to bed at 2am again. There was something inside me that said, you know you are flying to Oakland today, and unless you get your 3 mile run in today, you will have to do it tomorrow and your long run (this week is 7miles) will end up happening on Sun- which is another flight day. So get it done, Noelle!

Well I fought that thought for another 30 mins and didn't actually get out of bed till 7:30am- thinking, 'but I've only had 5.5hrs of sleep! shouldn't I rest?' While that was a fair argument, when I said "oddly, I woke up" I mean it. It was odd that I wasn't feeling so exhausted in the morning that I couldn't function. Instead it was like auto pilot to pull on my gear, including my sweatshirt and go out into the 35 degree morning and jog to the "gym". I got inside and took off my jacket and began to do the treadmill.

After I queued up my iPod to do a basic workout, the screen froze and I had to hop off the treadmill. Now this is starting to happen more frequently- which I don't think is a good sign. My iPod is a used 2nd generation Nano with 2GB of memory. I don't know if its age is why it keeps freezing up or what- but so far, as long as i can reboot- which I learned how to do online- I have been ok. It hasn't been too much of a distraction and hasn't taken too long to fix.

So I get on the treadmill and by the first 10 mins I was bored already. I thought about something my friend Tiffany had said about jogging outside in OR- how beautiful it is and how nice it is to warm up outside. She and Hirono did it together when they were training for the Portland Marathon. (Yes- apparently Hirono is famous for pulling her friends in to do marathons with her. Tiffany still says she was tricked into doing it and is working on forgiving Hirono. Cupcakes and dinners at Paley's have helped. *wink*)

I looked outside and even though it looked cold, the sun was shining and it seemed to be calling me out. So I took a towel and wrapped it around my neck, Rocky-style, put my sweatshirt back on and zipped it up with the hood on, and ventured outside.

It immediately struck me that outside was 35 degrees and not the 70 degree "gym", so I started to jog. Its amazing how motivating cold air is to actually MOVING your ass. So I jogged some and then I walked and then I jogged and then I walked. And I looked around. I took a path around Orenco station- near the hotel and behind New Seasons and looked at houses. The frost on the roofs and grass. The beautiful red colored vines that had been stripped of their foliage in the winter weather, but were still so vibrant and bare.

At one point, during the song, "Beautiful Day" by U2, I could hear the birds chirping so loudly through my headphones, that I just took off my headphones and listened to myself breathe and the birds sing. It was a beautiful morning. I passed by some people and we said 'Good morning' and finally made it back to the hotel 3.19 miles later.

I went into the hotel lobby and tried to enjoy their complimentary "continental breakfast". Which included Orange & cranberry juice, miso soup, a hard boiled egg, a slice of toast and some Siracha. Oh and a banana for the road. By this time it was 8am so I went back to the room to shower, check out and go to work.