Sometimes a cloud is a silver lining

I would say that I woke up late today but who am I kidding. To say I woke up late implies that I normally wake up earlier. But I can't seem to get my rear into gear before 6am. And I have no idea how or why it takes me so long to get read in the morning. All I do is wash my face, brush my teeth, pull my hair back in a bondiband (if you haven't tried one of these bands for your hair...run to get one), fill my water bottle, put on my clothes, strap on my HRM, grab my phone, turn on my nikeplus or mapmyrun, turn on my HRM, drown in some mosquito repellent and head out the door.

But I finally hit the streets about 7 am. I really thought it was raining outside because the it was not as light as usual. But it was just a small cluster of clouds holding back the sun. Oh, how I loved those small clouds. Instead of running in 85 to 90 degree weather...it was a frigid 75 degrees. Can you even imagine the joy I felt running in July in Texas and it wasn't terribly hot and sticky? I was ecstatic.

There were quite a few people on the trails today. The Leukemia society was training on the trails. How did I know? They were all wearing their shirts...Team TNT. And it was then I realized that I need to get some shirts or personalized Bondibands that say "Tutu in Training" (TIT...get it?) or "Ask my why I am running or walking?" So that is next on my agenda...get some advertisement for my cause.

The plan was to do the four mile loop near my house, come home, change my socks and do another four miles. And that is what I did. Apparently I was going too slow for the clouds and they got tired of holding back the sun because the abandoned me in the last two miles of my run/walk. I never know what to call what I am doing. I run part of it and walk part of it. In any case, as I was contemplating my fate with the sun and realized my silver lining was the cloud, I realized that cancer was the same way for me.

I always describe my life with two major time points: before and after Christ and before and after Cancer. It is hard for me to separate them because my discovery of salvation was almost at the same time of my cancer. In any case, cancer is always thought about with a bit of a smile. While don't wish it on anyone, I wouldn't take it out of my life. During that time, I learned what is important in life....and it isn't the IPhone 4G or the bigger house or the size of pants I would love to wear or that much wanted pay raise. No it is about bigger things like children, husbands, parents, brothers, sisters and my relationship with my God. There was joy during my journey. The cloud became my silver lining.

So 8 miles were completed today and it felt great. Well, at the time it wasn't great. By the time I got home, I was very hot and tired. I tore off my clothes, turned on the whirlpool tub and jumped in and just laid there and let the jets massage my body. It was great and it lasted an hour. I then jumped into the shower then jumped into bed for a nap. (I mean...heck I was up at 6am on a Saturday...I deserved the nap).

Tomorrow I have 7 miles on the training schedule. And I will get up early to do it. Funny, when I started this running journey, I said I would never become one of those freaks that get up at the crack of dawn to run...well here I am ....getting up at the crack of dawn for a run.

On a side note: My IPhone 4 has a glitch and I cannot use Nikeplus to track my mileage so I am using Mapmyrun. While it uploads to face book, it does not upload to blogger. So until an update comes out on Nike site or Nikeplusedit starts working again, my girl is going to talk smack to me. But that is okay...I know what I have done.