Fall and dogs and swimming.

Yesterday's long run stopped abruptly at about 11.5 miles. Everything that could've gone wrong went did. Actually not everything, just a few things. On the second mile, Garmin started flashing low-battery (though I charged it to full the night before!) and completely died at 8 miles. I had to figure out how far I went using MapMyRun, though when I stopped I had a pretty good idea. Running Friend didn't feel too good and she left me earlier than planned and I lost a lot of motivation after that. I wore my compression socks for warmth but they bothered my knees. I had classic stomach troubles of runners and in an emergency had to quit my run when I did. No more details necessary.

Luckily, that afternoon I wasn't quite dead-tired enough to have to lie horizontally all day, so I went into town with a couple of friends to help them with shopping. I noticed that the fall colors are starting to sneak out around campus...

One of the shops we went into had all of this different dog-themed stuff from different dog-themed vendors. I will definitely be returning there for gifts for my dog-loving friends! Especially for the lab-lovers that I know :)

Dinner last night was this beautiful salad and tomato soup+crackers. I couldn't not share the gloriousness of my daily vegetables!

Today was my first day of my official taper (T-14 days to race day!) so I didn't run at all. I went to the pool and swam for an hour, and did about 1 mile (hopefully more; I really want to be making progress!). The pool was freezing (I didn't get a lane in the warm dive-pool and had to go in the chronically freezing lap-pool) and if I stopped moving for .3 of a second I would clam up and turn purple. So I didn't really take any breaks and it was a great day of swimming. During my breast-stroke lengths I got to watch the divers at practice doing all sorts of cool flips and flops. I could never fall that gracefully! 

The weather today was very cold and grey (no sunlight alllll day!) and so that seemed to make swimming even more freezing. Afterwards I showered at the pool - best decision ever! My dorm showers have low water-pressure and have 1 temperature (which is comfortably warm but not hot which is what I really needed so I could warm up). The showers at the pool have crazy water pressure and are very hot. I need to start showering there more often!

Afterwards I had to bundle back up and brave the storm (drizzle) that was happening outside. 

Have a good week!