Wasted Continuum

Long day. I think some time during Sunday, my poor GTi stepped on a nail. This morning when I was driving to work, it drove like it was slippery. I just thought it was the snow that had been accumulating. When I was exiting off the highway, my car slipped big time. Luckily, my traction control kicked in and corrected for it and I got to work alright. At lunchtime, my coworkers and I were going to take my car to head out when my one of them noticed that my rear passenger-side tire lost a lot of air. It was then when I realized that it wasn’t just the snow that made it lose control all morning. We ended up taking another car to lunch.

After work, I drove my car to Tires Plus to patch up the leaky tire and actually replace them with all-seasons. I had the stock performance tires on. The guy working there told me that the only tires they had in stock that fit my wheels were also performance tires, not all-seasons. So I told them to just patch the leaky tire and I’ll get all-seasons later this week. They go and check out the leaky tire and come back to tell me that the sidewall actually cracked on the inside and could not be patched. That was when I figured that big slip out on the highway was probably the sidewall cracking.

So I ended up having to buy a hundred dollar performance tire to replace the cracked one. I still have to go and get them replaced with all-seasons soon. I’ll probably be out approximately 500-600 bucks this week. Not good.

I have finished my first official run. It was a blistering 24 degrees this morning. It’s a toasty 25 as I write this. There was an insane amount of runners there. It looked like the State Fair on a good day. Thankfully, I didn’t get run over by any strollers except when I was in the Target Center picking up my number. It took a good 3 to 5 minutes for me to get up to the starting line because of the crowd. It was just as bad at the finish line. I didn’t even get to run through the line. I hit a wall of people. I ended up with a time of 31′33″ which is very slow for me. That is also why I wasn’t even out of breath at the end. I could of ran a 10K. That is what I’m training for next. It was really fun though. There was one moment when I was running in the middle of N 1st Street by Origami that was just unreal. I was running right smack in the middle of this empty pocket of the crowd. Huge snowflakes were coming down and the only sound I can hear were the steps of the hundreds of people around me. I closed my eyes for a moment and it was like listening to a symphony. It was strange and peaceful. I don’t really know what to make of it.

I forgot to turn my Nike+ for the first part of my run. Smart. I did the same run as yesterday so it should be around 4.7 miles. Two days in a row in the cold was not too bad. My legs were definitely a little fatigued. My average pace was slower today. The asthma is still under control. It got a little heavy towards the end, but hopefully I’ll be fine by this weekend. I might try to run on Friday. I’m probably working overtime again this Saturday. I might still have time after that. The Turkey Day 5K is coming up fairly quick. I should be ready for it without any problems. I’ve been running much more than 5K these last three weeks. I’m going to rock it.

Cold. Very cold. I stress tested my winter running gear and I’m really glad they worked. It’s a good thing too, because I really needed to run. It felt good. I very much needed to clear my mind. I didn’t focus very well at work today which made it difficult since I was doing 100 percent cerebral-centric programming in Flash. I did find out that my lungs were okay for the most part. I could do six miles today, but I should by the end of the week. I just beat my 5K time today. The best is now 21′24″. Apparently, I run faster in the cold.