Three's a Charm When Thursday Sucks

So I just have to explain to all the non-teachers how bad my Thursdays always suck. I teach high school, which I love, and I teach three preps- Honors English 10, Team Taught English 10 (a Special Ed. inclusion class), and Mythology-- all of which I LOVE teaching. However, Thursdays suck serious butt. At our school, we have 90 minutes classes on Thursdays and Fridays. So on Thursdays, we teach periods 1, 3, 5, and 7 (on Fridays we do the even period classes). It just so happens that I don't get any break or planning period on Thursdays because I teach all the way through. It's exhausting; I'm not a teacher who sits down in a chair all day. I'm on my feet, bouncing around, darting across the room, basically doing whatever I can to ensure my kids are awake and learning. So by the end of Thursday I want to collapse. And without a planning period, I become somewhat of a monster and am very short fused with kids (and with my husband when I get home). It's not pretty.

The fact that I made plans to run on a Thursday after school with my friend Omari and our colleague (and hopefully new running buddy) Nicole shows my complete and total insanity on any average day. Multiply that by 10, and that's what I am after teaching three different subjects in one day without any breaks. Even so, I still got dressed for our run. And the three of us hit the roads around our school, which is really tempting fate. I mean, I have pissed off A LOT of kids in my 10 years of teaching through either giving them a bad grade, calling home, not writing enough positive comments on their essays... who knows. There could be kids who don't like me just for not smiling at them while passing them in the hallway. It would be easy for said angry students to just let their little sedans drift over to the side of the road and take me out. (Actually, I have really great kids. I'm just kidding. I know they wouldn't hit me with their car. They might dose a chocolate bar for a joke (okay, not really on this one either), but they would never hit me.)

We ran a 4.75 mile loop, surviving three dead deer, toxic fumes from decaying dead deer (and just so you know, I have never smelled anything worse than these two to three day old dead deer rotting in the sun), honking horns (most of which were our colleagues and students), and torrential rain. I've run in the rain before and I typically love it. But this was insane. This was some Forrest Gump rain. In case you forgot (put on your best Forrest Gump voice): "We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin' rain... and big ol' fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath."

When the wind blew, the rain pelted our faces like little bullets. It hurt! But here's what made it all worth it (sorry, I'm going to be a Polly-Anna again!):

I had great company. Omari said, "We're gonna look back on this and say, "Remember that day we ran like crazy people in the rain"?" He said this, of course, right before the heavens decided to open and dump buckets of water on us. All we could do was laugh and smile the more rain we faced. Nicole, my other running partner today, kept this amazing bounce to her step, even at the height of the down pour. At one point she raised her arms Rocky-like to suggest how great this was, without sarcasm. She was our cheerleader, fitting since not only is she a teacher but was also a professional cheerleader for an NFL team. When I wanted to just throw in the towel and walk, they kept me moving, bringing me to my fastest 5 mile time, once again. When we made it back to the school, we got some odd looks from both students and staff. We were drenched. Here's what we looked like:

I have to say, that run, while challenging physically since both Omari and Nicole are both faster than me, was a true pleasure. I was in serious need of a run with good company.

So yeah, Omari was right. I am going to remember this run.

Now if I can only figure out how to dry the puddles of rain in my running shoes...