Wow, what a weekend!

So Friday night I get home from work, and I just had this feeling. I had a feeling that I'd had a good run without DH (dear husband) having to be out early on a Saturday morning and thus allowing me to make my group runs with Chicago Endurance Sports. And I was right. So this week's 9-miler was going to be on my own. :(

The second "feeling" I had, was that with the predictions of horrible storms headed our way in the evening hours, I thought to myself "You'd better get these kids fed just in case the power goes out." And in just 15 minutes after we finished eating? The power went out. :(

I had a terrible night's sleep, waking up every 30 to 60 minutes, checking to see if the power had come back on. Finally, I noticed my clock blinking oo:30 in red, at about 4am (according to my cell), which meant the power came on around 3:30am. Getting up for an early run at 5am? NAH!

Besides, I rationalized, I could instead make up that 30 minute run, and then run my 9 miles on Sunday after a good night's sleep. So before running a few errands with the girls, I ran 30 minutes on the treadmill. Cool.

Fast forward to Saturday night. DH is going to see his brother in some show up on the north side, and I've convinced BF Annah that she should just stay overnight and run with me on the lakefront. And by with, I mean that we're both running on the lakefront at the same time. She's a 9:30 pace, or so.

Sometimes I'm anxious before a long run, especially when I'm going to be on my own, so it took a little while to doze of. I finally did though, and just got into that sleep where your body is all like "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. Sweet, glorious sleep." When all of the sudden I hear cars screeching, car doors opening, "GET DOWN ON THE M.F. GROUND! GET DOWN!! GET DOWN!!!!! M.F. DIDN'T YOU SEE MY UNIFORM GET DOWN!!!!" To say this was a rude awakening is an understatement to the tenth degree. My mind and heart were racing. From my second floor window, I peek out to see both undercover cops and regular cop cars/SUVs slamming to a halt right at our corner, jumping out with guns drawn, and one woman (the one screaming all the obscenities) pointing a gun at a dude's head, who was laid out spread eagle ON MY FRONT LAWN! (HOLY $#!T!!!!!!!!!!!)

So I come downstairs because, for one, althought the doors were locked, they were open so that the ceiling fans could get some sort of cool air, since it's so frikkin humid out....so I thought maybe I should shut the doors? Also to try and figure out what to do, if anything. As I'm coming down the stairs, I see cops with guns drawn on BOTH sides of the house, going to the backyard! WHAT?!! So I get downstairs and Annah is looking all crazed and wild-eyed, too! More and more cops are pulling up and they are now combing all of the backyards along the alley that we all abut.

So I can hear them talking and they're looking for one other suspect, and wondering if he could have scaled the concrete wall and barb wire to get into the cemetery. As one of the cops gets closer to our back door, I told him that our door lock doesn't work, and to check inside the garage. So they did. I was just hoping and praying not to hear any gunshots or have a cop get shot on the block....but even while all this was going on, I guess I felt like, that for the present moment with all these cops, we're likely the safest block in the city. They were out there for over an hour, and they didn't find anyone, to my knowledge.

It took me FOREVER to fall back asleep, maybe like 1:30 or 2am. Managed to at least get up at about 5:15am, watch the weather reports suggest that it was 74 degrees and 97% humidity at the lakefront, get kamikazi'd by a wasp in the bathroom, and finally make it to the lakefront just before 6am.

So the run itself was uncomfortable, I was hot, tired and just plain spent. My left knee felt like it was swelling in tune with the humidity. I walked A LOT. Maybe even 2 miles worth. Crazy thing is, Annah ran/walked the whole thing with me. I felt kinda bad because I know she would normally go way faster than me. I kept telling her to go ahead, but she didn't. Truthfully, only 2 miles in, I wanted to call it quits...but I didn't. I don't know that I wouldn't have, had she not been there. Overall my pace was well over 13. If I hadn't had such a great 8-mile run last week, I'd wonder about my ability to run 9 miles, or even 10 miles next week. But the truth is, if I can run 8 miles, I can run 9 miles. I guess I'm ok with just getting the distance in, regardless of how bad of a "run" it was.

Hopefully the stars will align and I will get some decent sleep, and the humidity will ease up a bit.