no long run

It was a stiff/sore/iffy gut morning so I didn't feel up to the challenge.

But I stiff felt like trying a run, so I decided to more accurately measure the new loop I'd tried recently. No detours! I tried, at least.

At first I was moving ok, just under 10:00/mile, and then things sort of seized up as they usually do and I started to get even slower....but this time, with the Garmin, I put my foot down. No. It used to be that 9:00/mile was easy, and I've gotten used to 10:00/mile, but enough with 10:30ish--11:00/mile! Yeah, that's where my easy pace is now, and I can usually accept that, but it doesn't really work for me biomechanically somehow and I have been getting bored of it.

So I pushed myself. It was disconcerting to feel how much effort 10:00ish/mile took, and it sort of hurt, like pushing through the wall does (which is pretty much where all my running is these days), but I kept it up and then after about 4.5 miles, I had a three mile stretch of bike path back home so I decided to do a tempo run. Just 15 min of tempo effort, see where I am.

Well! My tempo pace was pretty poor, 8:30-8:40/mile, and I decided to go for ten minutes instead because I was diverted off the bike path by construction--I got back on it, but crossing the street twice and the added hill (the path by the Canal is flat, but across the street is a hill, go figure) sort of blew my concentration. But ten min is still better than five. Maybe next week I can try for 15, or 2X 10 min, or whatever. Or the week after that.

I'm plenty sore now, but during my cool down jog, I realized that I also felt really good. I have been missing the endorphins and the smoothness of running faster.

No stairs today, I'd had enough. I'd considered sprints but then realized that I'd actually done them yesterday all in one go. I'd meant to do this as a separate post, but here goes:

I had to take a two-bus trip to a hospital for a field trip, part of the training program I'm in. The first bus was one of the nice ones that come every 5 minutes or so, the second was not. I don't know the Ottawa bus master plan by heart, but usually a bus comes every 5 minutes, or 30 or more...there aren't too many of an intermediate frequency (in my limited experience). Of course, this meant that when I got to the transit station, the other bus was arriving just as mine was, but on the opposite side of the road, which has a fence in the middle. If I waited for the next one, I would be late and then I'd have to hunt down my class meandering through the bowels of some hospital I'd never been to before.

So I ran, and I saw the second bus pulling towards its stop, and adrenaline kicked in and I got a good lift, and I was sprinting.

I love sprinting. I'm more of a fast-twitch person anyway. Why I signed up for yet another marathon is pure obstinacy. Unfortunately, my muscle recovery is so poor that I have cut out sprinting and replaced them with stairs, but yesterday I had no choice. But it was so simple, so elemental. I had no timer. It didn't matter. All I had to do was catch that bus. Because it wasn't a class day, I had no books to carry--I was unencumbered. I could keep my back straight and balanced, smash down with each step and bounce off, floating---when I move like this, it seems like I'm a foot taller, so little time gets spent on the ground. I got to the end of the barrier and saw the bus at the stop--no, I couldn't catch it, but there were other people still boarding it, so I lifted off again, and I got there. It was freakish. Everybody was moving so slowly. I was barely breathing hard when I got to the bus. I think I went about 200-250 metres. I have no idea how long it took. Probably a good thing but it is in the back of my head that, wow, what if I'd busted 30 seconds for 200M? This is a longtime always out of reach goal. I never did sprinting events per se, but whenever I had 200 repeats on my own, I'd try to smash the very last repeat and try to get under 30 seconds. Never happened! always 31 or 32. Someday, someday....

I probably was a lot slower yesterday, anyway. But maybe not. The other remarkable thing was that I didn't hurt. It was hard, sure, but it was such a serious hit of neurotransmitters that I was without discomfort for once, for the first time since my last good run in August, so I could totally throw down. man, I sure enjoyed whacking so much weight into the ground and tearing up a good chunk of muscle fibers. I miss that! I really do! As sore as my body is nowadays, it's a wimpy sort of soreness. It's degenerative, not progressive. I miss working harder.

OF course, this is maybe why the long run today didn't happen, but it was worth it.