36

They say you grow wiser with age. I turned 36 over the weekend and, even with the addition of another year under my belt, we sure had one of the worst workout ideas ever.

On Saturday, my birthday, I biked 48km and swam 1km.

The following day, my plan was to run for 2 hours or around 20km.

My friends and I (we now call ourselves Team Berlin because we’re all signed up for Berlin Marathon on Sept. 30) decided to skip our regular morning long run and switch this into a “Night Run.” A friend-who-shall-not-be-named conceptualized this idea after suffering the intense heat during a 24km run the previous week and then enjoying the cool evening air on weekday run a couple of days after. So, he thought: Why not run on a Sunday evening instead?! We all thought it was a great idea.

So, I met them at 6 PM. We bumped into Tessa Prieto-Valdes who found out it was my birthday weekend and ran into her house and came out again wearing a birthday cake headband atop her head just for me. (That is probably one of the sweetest and silliest things anyone has ever done for me on my birthday.)

Who said it would be cooler on a Sunday evening again? Even with the sun gone, it was as hot and humid as hell. There was no wind, not even a slight breeze. For all of 5 minutes, it drizzled and there was hope of rain pouring on us, then it quickly disappeared.

The last 5km was slow and painful. We all had run longer distances than this in the past, but why was it so difficult this evening?!  Oh, maybe because it was hotter than usual.  Maybe because our bodies were not as fresh as they are during a morning run.  Or, maybe because some of us had lunch as our last meal.  For whatever reasons, the fact was we were all craaawling.  When we ended the run, we were hoping that the restaurant where we were to dine for my birthday treat could simply deliver their pizza to us.

Anyway, we did make it to the pizza place. We had panizzas and pasta over talk on running, LMFAO, Subit, and, of course, the bad evening idea that we will probably never repeat again. We ended the night with the best way one does after running in intense heat. We treated ourselves to a scoop of gelato each. I would’ve wanted 5 more scoops of the peanut butter ice cream I devoured, but maybe I’ll reserve that for 37 years old or 50km, whatever comes first.

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Thanks to everyone who made the birthday weekend extra special. Received some awesome gifts from loved ones.  One of my favorites was from TBR Jr.  He kept on bugging me the entire week to buy him a box of silver paper clips.  Turns out, it was for my own birthday surprise: a bull made of paper clips!