Very late start today. Most Mondays I like to get out and run either before sunrise, or along with the sun rise. However I didn’t really even wake up much before 9 today because of my weekend. (I worked Saturday night, 7 pm to 7 am, then after a quick run home to put radio batteries on the carger, feed and walk the dogs, throw together an extension cable for a radio in the car, and grab a few things I drove down to Montgomery and worked to provide radio assistance for the Iron Man Bike Ride 100 mile leg from 11 am to 3 pm. I may blog more on that later, but not right now. I got to sleep around 9 pm last night and apparently needed it.)
Last Friday I felt like I was fighting to run the entire way, so I was a bit concerned that I would have some of that this morning, but after feeding and walking the dogs, I decided that there was no sense in putting the running off any further. I am glad I did the walking the dogs first however as it was much cooler than I was expecting, and the experience suggested changing to something a bit warmer than a t-shirt and running shorts. I do need to pick up some sweat pants this week though.
I could feel that my body wasn’t fully stretched out when I started. I had to cross a couple of intersections at a light jog to reduce my impact on traffic, and my legs did protest. However after the first 5 min warmup walk when the cue happened to switch to jogging, I pushed and away I went. Of course today’s ‘route’ had me running up hill for this first run of the day. No, the ‘rest’ of the run was not all down hill, but most of the warmup walk had been. About the time the cue came to switch back to walking, I had gotten almost all the way to the top of the hill, and my first ‘turn’. I don’t quite run a square, but running mostly on streets, you kind of go where the roads are.
A short walk to catch my breath and realize that the jog hadn’t put me out of my misery, and that I would probably be OK, and the second cue to run came up and I was jogging down that hill and into the General Mills nature preserve. I’m not entirely sure how much ‘nature’ is preserved with paved walkways, but it may be a lower impact to the environment than having people walking through the mud and so on.
Just about the time I got out of the nature preseve, the second jog ended, and I was back to walking. I could hear traffic ahead of me, and thinking I was pretty sure I hadn’t gone far enough to be hearing Winnetka traffic, I started looking for landmarks. I spotted a tower, and thought, “I don’t recall anything like that being over there” looked around a bit more, and finally spoted the water tower close to home. “Ah, well, we’re too early in this run to be heading for home yet today.” So I back tracked a short distance, and took a right from the path I had been traveling. At the same time I was cued to go back to running.
This time I was going up a much more gentle hill, and to tell the truth, other than seeing a couple of people with dogs, or being followed by a dog, I have to admit that I don’t remember anything specifically memorable about this jog. About the time the jog ended, I made the turn that pointed me back at my route home. So for a short walk to catch my breath again.
Finally the last jog started, and within a block I was on the sidewalk on the road home. I would not say that I ‘felt good’ on this block, I could definately feel that I had been running, and there were quite a few instances where I would have been more than happy to stop and end it, but I have to admit that the fight about running that I felt last Friday wasn’t there. I could go on during this portion of the run. And while there was no ‘cheering’ related to the end of the running portion, and the walk out, I felt pretty good.
I have not run ‘competitively’ since high school. Even then I would not consider my running to be very competitive. I know I never ‘won’ an event, and dead last was not exatly an unusual experience for me.
For the 10 years or so that I was in the army, I went through various experiences related to running. However as far as the army is concerned, you really don’t compete. Oh there are track and field events that the Acadamy has, but I didn’t go to the Point, so those didn’t apply.
That said, the aftermath of Desert Storm did give me the opportunity to get into running a bit more than otherwise. I was stationed at Kobar Towers for about 3 months while they figured out what our priority was for getting back to the states. And there I got into a habit of jogging every morning and night, around the compound. There was an impromptu race held, but I had decided some time back that ‘races’ really were not something I was interested in participating in. I was doing my running, mostly because I didn’t like the idea of sitting around doing nothing but reading, and I wasn’t particularily interested in sitting on top of the towers getting a tan and working with weights.
I’ve never run in an event longer than 3 miles. 5k may only be .16 miles longer, or another 800 feet or so, but from a competition point of view, it is ‘longer’ than 3 miles. And to tell the truth, from my perspective, I don’t need to compete with anyone. I’m already reaping rewards from the workout. Aches and pains I’ve had for several months have been going away. Clothing that has been too tight to wear, is beginning to fit again. (It’s still to tight, but not quite as tight as a month ago.)
And catching the bus last week was only ‘bad’ in that it was definately too cold to be standing around as long as I did.
More on Wednesday.
