Black Ice Run

Since John spent Tuesday night with his dad I decided to take advantage of the rare opportunity to run on the road early Wednesday morning before work. As soon as I left my driveway, I was met with a road covered in black ice. Rather than do the smart thing and go right back to the house and get on the treadmill, I decided to keep going. I only had just less than an hour to run, and going back would mean a complete change in attire, further wasting time, so I made the decision to keep on going. I had a stretch of dry road from the end of my street to Pequawket Dr, but then once again found black ice on the first hill. Considering it was dark and the headlamp only showed so much, I didn't realize I was on black ice until my feet were slipping out from under me. I did the best I could and then found a nice stretch of dry road until I ventured up Jack Frost Ln. The entire road was ice. Ugh. I ran a short distance up a dry Tasker Hill before having to turn around. Skipped Jack Frost on the way back. Hit the black ice on Pequawket again then ran home. It wasn't a total loss of a run, but it should have been way faster. 6 miles at 7:35/mi pace. Decent elevation gain, which most of my runs are by default. Haha. I do have some super flat runs that I will be doing more of to work on my speed, though.

7am started an extremely dull 48 hour shift. One transfer to Maine Med and two fire calls, one an actual structure fire, but those are only exciting until the fire is out. I can't complain, though. I had 4 different partners during 48 hours, so I at least had different people to hang out with and talk to. Plus, it gave me the forced rest I needed. I've really been able to pick my running back up quickly, but I'm not 100%. I need to be taking rest days at this point. I've always been one to take rest days anyway; I'm a firm believer in them. But I know for a fact I really need them right now. I feel like I'm starting over from scratch with the soreness, but it's been the extreme low back pain that has been nagging me the most. I don't know where it came from, and I don't know if it's like a which came first, the chicken or the egg type thing. Is this the cause of my original injury or was this caused by overcompensating in every way from walking, standing, sitting, etc while I was injured? All I know is that I've never had back pain like this. But anyway, the resting has been good for me for now.

On a different note, I found some race photos from the Jingle Bell Run 5k, and hahaha, they are pretty bad. Probably some of my worst race photos, but I thought I'd share them on the blog anyway. :) I'm kind of into putting "bad" photos of me on here lately. They're funny and more real, so why not? I don't care anymore. Plus, I've decided to start my midlife crisis celebration now. Haha. I turn 40 in 4 months. I'm kind of half kidding about the midlife crisis thing, but you can expect a few non-Leslie-like things out of me pretty soon, starting with tattoos. Haha. Why the hell not? In reality, 40 is just giving me an excuse. :) Anyway, here are my awesome race photos for the Jingle Bell Run.

Putting on the brakes

Deer in the headlights AND terrible form

One of those ridiculous Facebook quizzes that I couldn't resist taking. Pretty accurate. Haha.