18 - excuse me officer?

Today one of the most random things happened to me while running. 

So, I drove with my mom out to her work this morning, so that I could run home.  It was a rain storm out, but no thunder so I figured I was OK.  My mom did say that she felt kind of crazy driving her daughter 10-11 miles away from home in a rainstorm, then walking into work and leaving her to run her way home.  Aww, mom, I love you for it!  But I digress.....

The route home is an almost straight shot down a main road with sidewalks the whole way.  It is completely flat and well travelled by cars.  As I ran, the rain fell harder and harder.  Despite that, I knew my pace was not too bad, so I decided to keep pushing it as I could.  I was very absorbed in my ipod and feeling the freedom of the pace when I heard something come over what sounded like a loud-speaker.  I turned toward to road and realized that a cop car was driving along side of me, broadcasting something.  I must have jumped 10 feet in the air!  Behind him, cars were being held up as he drove next to me and continued talking into his cop-speaker thing.  I fumbled with my ipod, turned it off and looked at the cop, all while running.  That is when I realized he was saying "do you need a ride?"  I totally laughed in my head and just waved and shook my head 'no' and he drove off.  The cars behind him were thankful to finally be moving again, I'm sure!  Overall, it was funny.  The fact that he asked me that question on the loudspeaker means a) it was raining/winding harder than I realized and/or b) I looked really bad!  As I neared home, it started raining harder!  Boo.  But, I finally looked at my ipod with a couple miles to go and realized that if I hauled ass, I could hit pace.  I did my best, and hit 10 miles under 75 minutes, 7:29 pace.  Happy with that.

Then, tonite it was still raining, and even colder.  I met up with Mike and a couple other guys after work and we hit the roads.  Mike and I went up ahead after running with the group for the first 4 miles or so.  We were planning on running 8, but when we got back to our cars, my Garmin read 8.45.  Mike knows that I have an OCD about running 'even' miles (ie whenever the distance is over 0.3 mile, I have to run to the next mile), so he suggested a couple of loops around the parking lot to hit 9.  Overall, negative splits with 9 miles @ 7:54 pace.  19 mile day! :) :) Running makes me so happy.

Tomorrow, I have bakery + teaching.  Track workout in the evening too.  I think 1/2 mile repeats are the plan.  Should be good times as always!  I'm hoping the rain will stop by then!

And now, I'm off to watch my "marathon DVD" that came in the mail when I was gone over the weekend.  Yes, I'm that lame and ordered the DVD from my first Boston 2009, because I was in a sentimental mood right before Boston'10 and got suckered into it.  Apparently, it is supposed to have actual footage of me running the race (or so it the promise.)  We will see if that is actually true!