Carolina on my mind

"In my mind, I'm goin' to Carolina. Can't you feel the sunshine..." - James Taylor

I'd say my thoughts are on warmer places, that I'm bummed about the cold or the snow, but that's actually not true. It was beautiful to wake up this morning, look out the window and see over a foot of powder on the ground and trees. I suited up and took the dog out - promptly realized that:

1. The puppy has outgrown her horse blanket.
2. my boots are not tall enough for snow this deep.

I figured my feet were already wet and the dog didn't seem to mind that her butt was exposed from the blanket, so we hiked on. The snow was perfect - not that hard-packed stuff for snow-men, but the fine powder that seems weightless when you move your feet thru it.

My schedule today called for a 90 minute run and rather than risk getting hit by a car, I took the workout inside. Thank goodness for my IPOD and running into an old school friend, or I never would have survived!

At the 75 minute mark, a gym employee came up to me and told me I had to get off the treadmill - "there's an hour limit on these" he said. I thought he was kidding. To my left and right were about 20 empty treadmills. "Miss, you cannot run longer than 60 minutes". Meanwhile, I kept running - while he's talking to me. Absolutely stunned, I told him I just had another 15 minutes. No dice - I got off the treadmill and marched myself straight to the Manager's office. An "out to lunch" sign hung on the door. Argh! Left her a voicemail and let her know about what happened.

I wasn't angry so much as mystified - I thought they only enforced those rules when it was super busy? Is there some crazy new "cardio limit" that I'm not aware of? Crazy!

Not wanting to email Eric that I didn't get in the whole run, I threw on a jacket and ran the dog to the bank and back to get in those last 15 minutes.

It may sound weird, but when things like this happen, I like to think of it as the workout gods testing me - tempting me with the chance to quit early and have an excuse. Rather than give in, you've got to just turn the music up, throw on a cap and get to it! Hopefully I can add that little bit of mental toughness to my piggy-bank of race strength.

Happy snowy training, y'all!