How I Roll

I am now spontaneous.  I used to call myself “The Planner.”  I planned everything.  I knew exactly which days I would run, how many miles and which trails.  I planned on which day I would get gasoline, what time I would do the dishes, precisely how many loads of laundry I needed to do daily, how many pages I would allow myself to read a day, how many pages I would write a day.  You could not throw ANYTHING on me “spur of the moment.”  I was not very spontaneous.  I don’t think that I learned my neurotic “planning abilities” from my parents.  Mom and Dad seem quite spontaneous to me.  I’ll get a phone call, “What are you doing today?  We’re on our way over. ”(They live an hour away!  : )  Perhaps they were more planners when they raised me.  Or perhaps that’s just the way my brain was “wired:” systematic, organized, compartmental.  Or perhaps, it’s an overcompensation for all the clutter up there (in my brain that is : )

Well!  Now that I’ve taken on substitute teaching during my days (which are open, because I work evenings), I don’t know whether I’m going to work until 6:30 in the morning.  So, I don’t plan my runs anymore.  I pretty much just run when I don’t work. 

By 7:30, I knew I wasn’t working this morning, which meant that after getting the boys off to school, I had until 2:30 when I needed to leave for my regular job.  After dropping off boy number three, I spontaneously drove back home to chat with my husband before taking off.  I changed my mind THREE times where I would run (that’s rather spontaneous don’t you think?).  I first decided to drive to Trabuco Canyon for a mountain run.  Then figuring the round trip would total about an hour and a half driving,  I decided on closer trails for a longer run time.  So with the coastal hills of Newport Beach/Irvine in mind, I packed my bags and got into the truck.  On the road I figured my round trip driving would total about a hour.  I still wanted more running time.  While driving, I changed my mind (more spontaneity) and drove off to Aliso/Wood Canyons, with only a half hour round trip driving time.  Now, I know you’re probably thinking, “That’s not spontaneous – you always run there.”  But it was indeed spontaneous.  Running today period was spontaneous, and how I decided upon these trails was as well.  I simply decided to run, and run, and run, and run until I didn’t feel like it anymore or until I ran out of time, with no particular path in mind, with my only goal to just have fun.  Fun.  Yup, that’s it.  Fun on the trails.  That’s the how I roll.

Who would guess that I’d visit my old friend Meadows Trail?

But I didn’t run all of Meadows.  I decided to kick up my heels on Mentally Sensitive.  Looked like it was lonely and hadn’t been run in a long time.  Look at Mentally Sensitive’s entry:

More fun running up Mentally Sensitive:

And still more fun going up Mentally Sensitive.  I’m inadvertently sliding down this railing as the camera clicks:

The prize at the top of Mentally Sensitive:

And then I turned left, spontaneously, and ran the trails to the city park down the way:

Where I had myself some swing time:

I could have swung for an hour.  But more so, I wanted to run.  So, I ran to Top of the World, because I LOVE TOP OF THE WORLD:

Then I ran up one hill, then down another hill, then up a hill, down another, again and again until I ended up in Wood Canyon which I ran all the way to the end (or rather beginning):

13.54 stress-free, thoughtless miles run today (21.8 km):