Running and audiobooks: Not a good mix

I like running. I like listening to audiobooks (still often referred to as "books on tape"). I thought, "hey, I have to run about a bazillion hours this morning, I'll listen to a book instead of music". No. Just, no. Apparently, it doesn't work like that. My brain got tired of paying attention to running and paying close enough attention to follow the story somewhere in my fourth mile. So I ran sprints and walked to finish up my time.

About 20 minutes before I was done (I know because I was watching the clock at this point), a guy started talking to me. (Calm down, I'm pretty sure he's married.) He noticed I'd been on the track for over an hour. (Hey, thanks for noticing.) So I walked with him the last little while. I'd seen him at the gym before. He said he likes to lift weights and doesn't like to run very far because it makes him too skinny. (Insert your own rude remark here.) He turned out to be a computer tech from India (insert your own stereotype here). We talked about India and how crowded everything is, especially compared to Minnesota. He said it didn't bother him when the gym was crowded (thank you, New Year's Resolution joiners for being done by the way) at the start of the year because it felt more like home. There's a new way to look at things.

Yesterday, well most days last week I did not run. I did get to the gym one of the days to do the elliptical. That was when I realized the New Year's Resolution folks had stopped clogging up the gym so much.

Looking at the running I did in Florida compared to the very next week here, I finally realized how hard it is to train in Minnesota in the winter. It really impacts my running, mostly the distances I would run, more than I realized. I miss those eight mile runs. That was a good way to wake up. Hopefully we'll be done with this snow and crap soon and I'll be able to run outside to my hearts content.