surprisingly not sore at all from yesterday's long run!!! must have been all of that massage work.
started my run late again because i slept with my son again. i started going down the sidewalk, when i hit a patch of ice. even worse on the road. i turned around a headed towards the elementary school that has a nice little mulch path a little less than a third of a mile long (or rather short).
yes that's right. i spent the next hour doing approximately 28 laps around the play ground. there is a little rise and fall during this loop and it is rather beautiful there. but this was a bit ridiculous. this is as close as i will ever get to running on a treadmill. this takes considerably more mental toughness than one big loop. with a loop (even a there and back course) you have to run back home, there is no choice. with this, each lap is a choice.
the only thing keeping me going was the fact that this was the last run of the week and i needed to put in all ten to complete my mileage.
i use to think that there was something magical about this high number of weekly mileage, something heroic, epic, adventurous. but after this run, especially after this run, i realize that it is just a number which means that you are running even longer and even more. that running is just about consistency, going out there and getting your miles in, no matter what that means. and for an icy day that will be 28 laps around a play ground.
sunday, 12 miles . . .
baby woke me up 20 minutes before i actually needed to. i thought that i would take advantage of this and put in some extra miles to get a jump on the week. usually sunday running is so short because of church, i feel like i'm playing catch up all week, like i have no give in my miles.
i started going along my run and everything was fine. but it was dark. this always slows me down a little because i want to be careful. after the second mile i was quite a ways from my target pace--and i was going downhill. i picked up the pace, still headed downhill. finally at the end of this section i had hit my pace. this was a bit worrisome because most of the way back is either flat or uphill. little did i know this wasn't going to be the problem.
after i turned of the main road to hit up some more residential areas, i hit some pretty bad ice. and there was nothing i could do at that point. fortunately it was intermittent and i switched frequently back and forth between the sidewalk and the road depending on which was less icy. for a lot of the time i ran on this very slim section that was between the road and the sidewalk that never seemed to have ice.
i did pass one other runner near the end of the run. he looked like he was going pretty strong and he had quite the entourage of dogs with him. one in front, two behind. not that close to him. none of them leashed. but they must have been trained really well because they didn't even look at me.
so i'm going into the week with an extra four miles to play with. i'll have to use them wisely.
on the drive to church, i came to a sudden realization. i had run more miles last week than i had drove. epic.
No comments:
Post a Comment