She Said I Kicked Asphalt!!!!!!

This past weekend I ran in only my 3rd 10K.  This distance is still uncomfortable for me, but somehow I manage to get it done. 

This was the first race that I went to another town to complete.  And I learned a lot.  The weather reports keep changing all week, so I had to pack several options. But silly me didn't take anything to the race to put on immediately after, when I started to chill from being cold and wet.  It rained the entire race, with varying intensity and was quite windy.  I think the temp was around 52.  By mile 3 I could feel my feet squishing in my shoes.  Thanking the Lord I had my visor to keep most of the rain off my face; my Brooks arm warmers; and my Bandi belt for my phone, which, when placed on the inside of my shorts, somehow kept my phone dry!!!! Tunes in the rain!!!

But the thing I was most thankful for was 2 wonderful friends that got up early, drove me to race, walked me to start line (all the while telling me, "It's not going to rain!"), held up 2 great signs ("Worst Parade Ever" and "You Kick Asphalt"), hung out in the rain while my slow ass ran 6.1 miles, and cheered me to the finish line.  I mean, seriously?!! I felt like royalty!  I've never had anyone at a race FOR ME.  Sometimes I know other people running in the race, but I don't see them once we start.  It was so nice knowing I was going to see familiar happy faces at the end and it made me want to do well so they would be proud of me.  It makes a difference, not going to lie.

That is the yin and the yang of running for me.  I think it is the sport that finally suits me because it can be a solitary adventure but it can also be so fantastic when it's shared with others. Running is good, it's bad, it hurts, it soothes, it challenges and it rewards.  My friend Mary asked me why I started running and I gave her a short, simple answer like "stress relief", but it made me think about it and if she asked me now my answer would be: I run because it's the only thing I've done thus far that makes me feel accomplished in my physical self, which is something I've never had before in my life. And that feeling of physical accomplishment affects my other "selves", sometimes without me even realizing it.  I bet she is glad she got the short answer.......

Thank you, thank you, thank you to my friends for making this latest physical accomplishment my best one yet.  Even in the rain and the wind. 

I'm Sorry My Food Has Faces In It!!!!!

I started to notice this past week that people apologize to me when they have food I do not eat.  And it strikes me as a very interesting phenomenon. 

It happened 3 times this past week: my manager at work placed leftover birthday cake on our conference room table close to where I was sitting and she looked at me and said "sorry"; someone brought dessert for a potluck and as she was walking by me with the dish she said "sorry, this has egg in it"; and then someone sat by me for lunch one day with tuna for their meal and they apologized for having it! 

I'm not sure why people feel the need to apologize to me for their food choices. On one hand, I guess it's a positive display of their knowledge of my eating habits and the fact that they are "sorry" that everyone can't partake in sharing their food? Maybe?  But on the other hand, it's kind of annoying, because it is constantly pointing out my out of the norm food life.  Do they think I'm going to mistakenly reach for a brownie or piece of birthday cake like it's accidently vegan? And I hate when they add the word "can't" to the mix, as in "I'm sorry you can't eat this".  Actually, I can eat it, but I'm choosing not to.  So there doesn't need to be an apology for providing food that I'm choosing not to eat; it's like you are apologizing for my choices.  It makes me uncomfortable.

Which brings me to the question: what is the proper response to these statements? My knee jerk Southern upbringing reaction is to quickly say "That's ok", or "No problem", but that doesn't really feel right. But I have no idea what response would be better. I'm still horrible at defending my food choices without sounding preachy, so it's usually better to keep my mouth shut, I've found. It happened the other day when someone made the classic statement, "But why can't you eat honey, that's why bees make it?".  (Can't word again!!) When I pointed out that bees don't make the honey for us and that some bees do die in the harvesting of honey, they started giving me the look so I just shut up. 

Any of this ever happened to other vegans reading this post? What do you say?

On a less whiny note, I started a 30 day ab challenge yesterday that looks pretty horrific; I'll post on the results of this as I go along.