Day 3,731—a 207.6x mile week or 29.6x miles a day/ Where is my Powerade at?—

I need to dedicate this week of running to my son, who is a serious Coconut water fan. He is always taking my blue containers and moving them around the house. He jumps when he hears me and runs to the door saying “dada, dada, dada, dada! He puts his hands straight in the air for a hug. He is always happy to see me.  

I still need to write about Monday and Tuesday but those days I literately ran all day. I made it to my goal today and was able to add a little. I was thinking I Would have to do a minimum of 204 miles (328.31 km) if everything had worked out before, so running the extra 7 seems like the minimum I can do.  I was a little sorer today than I have been most of the week, which is to be expected, but I credit my recent soreness with my run yesterday, in which I did go a little faster than I probably should have, but all in all a successful week.  It started out in an odd way. I went to the store to buy some essentials for my wife and family. 

I don’t normally start my run with a trip to the store, but I thought I could get it out of the way and then head right back out, but that is not how it worked out.  At least 30 other shoppers went to check out at the same I did. I traveled over to a different section of the store to see if I could find someone else to check me out but no such luck. Then as I walked back towards the huge line with one person checking people out, I saw someone else open a register! I was in luck, and I was second in line.  

I was just thinking what a good decision I made when the guy in front of me almost had a breakdown because the card reader wasn’t working. It did luck annoying, but he was unreasonably upset, which made the cashier more anxious. She moved to a different register as a last resort, and then this guy wearing sunglasses in the store got behind her. I wasn’t about to let this guy cut in front of me on top of everything else, but I still wasn’t sure what the cashier was doing, so I told him about what was happening. He didn’t look at me but said, “I DON’T WORK HERE! YOU SHOULD BE TALKING TO HER!” 

I was so surprised by his irrational response that I stepped back and remained silent. When the cashier told him the same thing and motioned for me to get in front of the guy in sunglasses, I looked at him while I stepped in front, and he said, “I DON’T WORK HERE!” Such a bizarre response but alas, who is to say what is going on with the gentleman in the sunglasses? The rest of the run went on without much drama until I tried to get some Powerade from a gas station. This is a gas station that is on my route, and it has Powerade as a fountain drink. 

I don’t usually drink Powerade, but I love having a fountain drink on a run on a hot day. On Friday when I was there, I noticed the Powerade tasted mostly like water, but I bought it anyway and told the guy that worked there. Yesterday, I bought Powerade in a bottle instead of the fountain drink (why take the risk?) while the woman in front of me bought 40 different packs of cigarettes. It is always odd how long some people take to do simple things, but I probably wouldn’t be thinking about it if I wasn’t waiting to buy my drink, so I could enjoy it.  

Today, I figured that the guy had to have replaced the Powerade by now, so I went back to check it out. I tasted a little, and it was fine, but once I filled up my cup I noticed it was looking more and more like water when I tasted it. It was the same watered-down version I had the other day. Yet, it was still cheaper than a lot of other drinks, so I didn’t say anything this time. I was just annoyed. How hard is it to change out the syrup?  I was thinking I wanted to end today on a high note, so I decided to go to QT and get a Powerade Slurpee. I haven’t had a Slurpee in a long time, but I saw at a different QT that they usually have Powerade Slurpee. I ran to the one close to my house right at 26 miles. The plan was to get a Slurpee and walk in the last .2, but the QT didn’t have any Powerade Slurpee the machine was broken, so I went to the fountain machine instead and that was broken. 

I don’t know how many other people are drinking Powerade, so maybe this a problem I am alone in facing, but it still seems odd to hit 3 different Powerade providers that don’t have the drink on the same day. Despite this major problem, I was still able to finish the day strong and get to the distance I wanted. 

I am part happy, part disappointed, and part looking forward to the next longest week. This one I ran over a marathon a day, so I think the next logical step is to average 50K a day for a week which would be 217.77 miles (350.47 km), which I am not too far off from, so I am confident I can do it. I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself but 50 miles (80.47 km) a day would be next, so that’s 350 miles (563.27 km) for the week and that sounds like something spectacular, so I like this challenge. It has been fun this week, and I got extremely tan and a little red.