Running, eating, and weather on crack.

This morning, I got up to do reading in my favorite book ever : Robert Mandrou's Introduction à la France moderne: 1500-1640, Essai de psychologie historique. No joke, apparently Monsieur Mandrou is of the belief that one may just say anything at all about the psychology of 16th century France with, at best, tenuous arguments to support his statements. I hope that one day, if I ever have a Ph.D. attached to my name, I will be able to make grandiose generalizations about the state of things and back them up with flimsy arguments. Then I'll get a book deal and laugh at all the grad students having to read my load of merde. (That's French for "shit.")

After spending over an hour slogging through 20 pages, I gave up and baked my own banana doughnuts like the ones Roommate Tina had sent us:


The dough was sticky and resembled whole-wheat tar. Alas, my poor hand-mixer groaned and wheezed as it tried in vain to beat the crap out of the ingredients. I really like the convenience of a hand-mixer, but I won't lie: I'm definitely coveting a KitchenAid Artisan stand mixer (in red). Then Roommate Tina and I can meet up and have play-dates with our mixers and go for runs with our matching shoes!

I bought unsweetened applesauce at the grocery store the other day because I was intending to substitute it for oil in baking recipes. I didn't use it today, so I ate some on top of yogurt, which is a combination I learned in France. Obviously, this means it's far superior than anything I could dream up on my own:


The weather has been ridiculous all day. We had sustained winds above 30miles/hour for most of the day, with gusts up to 50mph. The power flickered in the apartment several times, though the sun was shining, and the sky was clear blue with fluffy white clouds. Around dinner time, we received an EMERGENCY message from the University that campus was experiencing wide-spread power outages. Oh, and did I mention that we had a tornado watch for most of the day? And on top of all this, our weather radio kept announcing in its stilted, electronic man-voice that severe thunderstorms were going to rain fiery hell upon us all day.

Nevertheless, around 7:30, I went out for a five-mile run with Lena. She ran five miles on her own, and I met her for the second half so that she too could experience the joy of double-digit mileage. (I'd say hers went much better than mine because she didn't seem to be contemplating samurai-style suicide at any point.) The run was pretty hardcore because 1) we ran in the dark 2) it was rather windy still 3) we had to dodge all sorts of things fallen branches and sticks. We took it kind of easy, but we ran pretty negative splits:

• Mile 1: 11:25 (We didn't feel that slow. How odd.)
• Mile 2: 10:43
• Mile 3: 10:14
• Mile 4: 9:58
• Mile 5: 10:03
• 0.09-mile nubbin: 0:41

At one point, while we were running into Campus Town (=bar-land), we ran by a group of students. As we passed, one of the girls loudly said, "Fuccccck that! Who would run now?"

You know who runs now? People who don't have to cram their fat cankles into salt-encrusted Ugg boots. So basically, Lena and I, and not you.

In other news, my legs felt surprisingly good considering how crummy they felt at the end of the 10-miler yesterday. There was very little pain, just some slight soreness in my quads. I'm going to take this as a sign that I do not suck at 10-mile runs and that yesterday was a weird weather- and hill-related fluke.

After the run, we rewarded ourselves with take-out from Lena's favorite Thai place. The boyfriend doesn't really like Thai, so it's a delicious treat when I get it. I was quite pleased with my tofu and vegetable dish, though it wasn't as spicy as I expected. Hopefully, post-run Thai food will become a more frequent occurrence and I can assure the restaurant that it's okay to make my food hot. (As in, "Thanks, Satan, for the bowl of hell-curry!" hot.)

Lena got pad thai. I tested it for poison and confirmed that it was a) safe and b) delicious.


Off to bed! Tomorrow, I go into the running store to discuss the job a little more in-depth and decide if my schedule will work. Hurray, more work, but it's running-related, so that's okay!