If there is one sport I am just not that into, it’s football, particularly the NFL. I know. I grew up in Dallas in the 1990s, and I’m not into football. I’ll watch the occasional playoff game, and I get the scores for the Titans on my phone but I don’t normally care enough to watch.
College basketball is a different story. As a kid, we had two separate cats named Bobby Knight. And when I got a marketing e-mail telling me how I should order a party platter for the “Big Game,” for some reason, I thought they were referring to the Vanderbilt/Kentucky basketball game coming up on February 11th. Also, I may have eventually gotten a little lippy with some MTSU fans at the Vanderbilt game this past Saturday, but my God, they were obnoxious.
Or the other weekend when I went to the gym and asked them to turn one of the televisions to NBC. “Why? Is there a game on?” Um, just the Olympic Marathon Trials. Doesn’t everyone want to watch a bunch of frighteningly skinny-yet-muscular distance runners duke it out on the streets of Houston? Sorry I’m not sorry, but it was way more exciting than whatever NFL game was on the other channels.
All of this to say that you probably won’t be seeing a lot of Super Bowl party recipes over here this year. With Joe gone and absolutely zero connection to either team or location where said teams reside, it’s not a big deal in our house.
This, however, is a big deal. Remember last week’s disastrous long run and subsequent ego deflation and hand-wringing? Well, this week I rocked out 12 miles all by my lonesome (though not if you count Beyonce, J Lo, and Nicki Minaj). Like, I felt so good that I did a victory lap around my condominium complex. It was a cloudy day that turned sunny with more wind than I would’ve preferred, but I mapped a route through some of my favorite parts of the West side. I ended up having a picnic of Gu Chomps and water in Centennial Park (Parthenon and Friday night’s mascara pictured above), and it was splendid.
I like running on trails and in parks, but there are also some advantages to urban running. Like bathrooms. And things to look at besides trees. The disadvantages would be cars and road noise and occasionally having to run on concrete sidewalks rather than asphalt paths or roads. Also, a giant group of walkers that took up the entire sidewalk and eventually forced me to cross the street. But whatever, it was awesome.
I closed out January with 101 miles (a lot for me!), which gives me a great start for the year. Since I skipped my first step back week so that Mom and I could run the 11.2, I’m taking it this week. Then, we’re doing the Frostbite Half Marathon on February 11th. The plan is to treat it as a training run. Hahaha, famous last words, but I’ll leave you with this thought:
