j-lyn's corner

 It's official: I should be the next pin-up girl. With 27 layers and pepper spray.

Nothing like running a lot of 0.8 mile loops around your trailer park wearing a painter's mask to make you feel like a winner in life. It was dark, cold, and smoggy.

The trailer park's night security guard (in the little go-cart) chased me down. I kept running, and it took them about 0.4 miles to catch up as I wove through the tiny streets (entertainment). "Do you live here?" "What are you doing?" "Are you sure you're just exercising?" "Why are your wearing a mask?" Once we all figured out I wasn't going to sneak in through someone's doggie door and steal their cookies, we went our separate ways.

There were 3 cops surrounding a trailer. That was exciting. It also interrupted my loop. A man carrying a pipe stopped me, asking if I had seen his little dog. I said no and kept running. I tried to ignore him the subsequent times he tried to stop me (he creeped me out) and once I saw him driving in his car circling his trailer, I cut that area out of my loop.

Oh, and at the 9 mile mark the "crazy-old-hoarding-man" died and was being removed from his trailer. Even though his trailer was filled with piles of garbage and he'd sneer and me and my kids whenever we went passed, I am sensitive to death and it put a damper on my mood, and I ended up slowing down a bit the last few miles.

I also removed my mask after 8 miles, it became restrictive once it was filled with frozen condensation.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching the progression of two Florida girls (who I presume came for OR) shovel snow from their grass, sent up some weird tarp tent from the trees, and alternate moving the car around to shine the lights in different areas (they didn't have headlamps), and sit in it to thaw (their winter clothing was cuter than warm).

Who knew so much goes on at 10pm in a trailer park? Fortunately the trailer park is "safer" than my surrounding areas (I've had scary experiences in daylight there...Like the big black guy who cut me off in his car and hopped out yelling at the top of his lungs to come to his car so he could spray me with his body spray. Also memorable is the hispanic man who followed me with a baseball bat and the strange skinny white guy who wanted me to look at the chihuahua in his pocket).

I much prefer the trails. At least this all took only 1:42. Felt like I was going faster, probably because I was on mixed ice and snow.

Went for a hike with the boys in Millcreek. Hiked around a mile, then played McDonalds, ate ice cream, and watched movies. Oh, I also managed to do an hour of core/lunges.

sick day :/

6 miles round trip to the summit of something next to Mt Wire. Maybe it wasn't a summit. I wanted 10 flat miles on the BST and somehow ended up on the never-eding climb of doom. At least it was warm above the inversion.

Then I pushed the kids in the double jogger to OR and home again. I was supposed to "pick up" Ben from work. Instead he got to speedwalk/jog home with me and the jogger. Such a wonderful wife I am. 

Ran on deer fence trail in Logan. Stupid freezing rain... turned around after 2 miles. The rain had turned to hail, I was soaked, miserable, and tired of slipping on ice-crusted packed/uneven snow. I also was still feeling a little wishy/washy from the flu.

Got out at 4am this morning in Millcreek. I actually got to the parking lot at quarter to four, and while there were quite a few cars in the lot, they were all dark and unoccupied. No worries, I brought the complete works of Flannery O'Connor. I'd been wanting to re-read one of her classics, "A Good Man is Hard to Find." 

So from 3:45-4:15am I sat reading about an escaped murderer who kills a young family with their grandmother on an abandoned dirt road. 

The truck behind me occasionally had glimpses of light. I figured I was just over-excited with my reading and that it would be best to ignore it.

That is, until 4:15 when JK and LH pull in.... and that truck turns on and drives down the road! So someone was there the whole time! I'm sure it was someone who lives in their truck just looking for a quiet place to sleep, but it was still a little unnerving.

Kind of like the time I made the excellent decision to listen to "Lovely Bones" while running on the trails in Logan Canyon at midnight by myself. If you ever want to be spooked, listen to a murder on your ipod while running on the trails by yourself. It'll make you stronger... or more resilient at the next haunted house.

Apparently GPA is not a true indicator of intelligence.

It was a brilliantly fun run. Good convo, good pace, and good snacks (thank you homemeade Larabar). It was warm and crisp and clear. I even enjoyed the "rough" single-track.... it's like running down something technical, while not running downhill.

All was going well, til I got food poisioning today. Thankfully after 4 hours of misery, it's starting to clear out. Glad I didn't eat all that much today.

I swear I've thrown up more this winter than any other (excluding pregnancies). On the flip side, I've never come this far through winter without getting a bad cold or sinus infection. 

And simply because life is incomplete without imagery and music:

  That's a cool hunk of snow that looked like a rose.

Song of the day, Last Kiss cover by Pearl Jam