Get out there, Girl, and run!

I was feeling kind of lousy over the last couple of days, which may be related to a red-meat overdose I think I suffered on Sunday at lunchtime. Here’s what happened...

My friends, Giorgia and Marco, who are very nice people, hated the idea of my spending a Sunday alone (knowing that husband is out of town until Thursday. He’s touring around Germany for work/beer...) and so they asked me if I wanted to go on a nice, leisurely COMPLETELY UPHILL (I know I sound like a broken record here, but have you been to Trieste? Think San Francisco...) ride on the bike path (which used to have train-tracks and choo choos on it in the olden days). If you go long enough and far enough, this steady incline will eventually take you over the border and into Slovenia, and at the VERY VERY end, you get to MAHNIC (pronunciation: mock-neech), which is a restaurant and brewery where you eat large platters of assorted meats for cheap (and I am all about quantity!).

I decided to go light. I had a beer which was a light color (There’s no such thing as a large beer, by the way. They only have “small” and “medium”. So I had the medium), a plate of potato gnocchi with goulash (I soaked up every bit of juice, too, with whatever I could find, falling just short of picking up the plate and licking it), a platter of roasted potatoes (now I’m starting to think it was actually a potato overdose), which I shared (very “light” of me, n’est-ce pas?) and I shared a plate of beef Tartare (which you may know as cannibal sandwiches. Remember New Years in the 70’s? Served on toasted rye rounds? Yup, it’s just as good as you remember. Maybe even better...)... Don’t think I wasn’t picking off of other plates, either! Because I was! And I even contemplated dessert, but they didn’t have the one I wanted, so I went without and actually felt disappointed (rather than relieved)!

Then we hopped back on our bikes again (my first bike ride in 6 years, by the way, and my backside is still in angry rebellion) and rode all the way home. Only this time we didn’t have to pedal. At all. It was THAT downhill...
Then I got home and the cramping started. Uck. And it didn’t let up until this morning. And the worst part? No one to complain to! Dog? Don’t care. Husband. Outta town. Laura? Yeah, Laura! I’ll complain to my training partner Laura!
Here were my complaints: My tummy hurts. I don’t feel like running. I think I pulled a muscle in my hip. I’m feeling a little malaise, I don’t know if I’m up for a marathon. Can we ask them to make it 26 kilometers instead of miles? Etc. You get the idea “blah blah blah bellyache bellyache bellyache...”

Her answer?

“Get your mojo going, girl. I can't have you all down in the dumps on me. I count on you (or at least the idea of you) to keep me motivated. The snow is going to fly this week and I can't have you complaining of sore bunions, or something. Get out there and tack on the miles.”

I think my partner spelled out the moral of this story with a TOUGH LOVE APPROACH. Kari, quit yer bellyachin’ and get your butt out there and run.

And, you know what? Today I felt better! And I got out there and ran before the rain started coming down.