Training for 11/19/18

Exactly eight years ago today, Clark and I brought Pepper home. He’s been ruling the place ever since. Right now, he’s glaring at me from the other side of the back door because I was typing on my dumb computer instead of waiting by the door to open it for him the moment he was ready to come back in.

“It’s so hard to find good help these days.”

Happy eight years together, Pep!

This weekend was pretty quiet. Saturday morning, I ran a lap around the 5.5-mile loop. My cold seemed to be making a comeback, because I felt a little worse than the day before. So I took it even easier and ran a 9:25/mile average.

Later that morning, Bart met us at our house and we all went to the Analog-A-Go-Go tasting event at the Dogfish Head brewery in Milton. Clark’s parents offered to watch Pepper, but he’d randomly gotten a nosebleed that morning (we think from running into door frames and furniture so often — he has a habit of running ahead of us but looking behind him at us because he doesn’t know where we’re going, which leads to a lot of banging his snout on things) and we didn’t want him to get it all over the new bed they were getting delivered that day, so we took him with us too.

It was a little on the chilly and breezy side in Milton, but still a nice day for the event, 90 percent of which was outside. There were a couple teeny chihuahuas in sweaters that looked more like a fashion statement, but Pepper was the only dog there who needed a coat haha. And he was still shivering!

We each got 10 samples, eight beers and two cocktails. My favorite was the Raspberry Truffle Stout, which was exactly what it sounded like.

There were several food vendors there. Near the end of the afternoon, I got a Nutella and ice cream waffle sandwich from Nellie’s Waffles and Ice Cream. As soon as I got back to where Clark was waiting, Pepper leapt up and knocked the whole thing right out of my hand! I picked everything off the ground and was seriously going to try to eat around the dirt — that’s how much I love Nutella — when one of the women from Nellie’s came and took it away and made me a new one. Thanks, Nellie’s! I stayed far away from Pepper with the second one.

We left Milton and took Pepper to Big Oyster Brewing in Lewes for an early dinner. Then we stopped by the Dogfish Head brewpub in Rehoboth, but Pepper couldn’t go in and it was too cold to sit outside after sunset, so I stayed in the truck with him. Clark and Bart had a beer there and got some more to go, and then we headed home.

On the way, my throat was feeling worse and worse, so I stopped at a Rite Aid for my favorite dinner in that situation — Ben & Jerry’s and Nyquil. When we got home, I ate a little of the ice cream and then took a shot of Nyquil. I was out like a light soon after.

I slept straight through the night. I think that’s the magic of Nyquil. It lets you sleep, which is the real medicine. I read somewhere once going to sleep and hoping you feel better in the morning is the human equivalent of “shut it off and turn it back on again.”

I felt a million times better when I woke up. I still didn’t feel like running though, so I didn’t. We just watched football, the NASCAR season finale (congrats, Joey Logano!) and a few Hallmark Christmas movies. I can’t even remember how this Hallmark movie thing got started, but Clark is really into them right now. He even downloaded an app on his phone to keep track of which new ones he’s seen haha. (There are 22 new ones this year alone!) All the past years’ movies are still new to us too.

Today is the first day of my 17-week Shamrock Marathon training plan. It’s a beautiful day out for the short easy run on the schedule.