One of our former Ute village friends posted on her blog a small essay on why she ran.
Given my weak performance in training so far this year, I began thinking about this.
Today's run reminded me why I run. Last week's long run consisted of 6 x 1 mile runs @ 10 minute per mile with a 100 m walk between each mile. Although 4 of the six miles were under 10 min, every mile was difficult and by the 4 mile point my legs felt as heavy as lead. During the week, I did two gym work-outs, one for 60 minutes on the cross ramp machine at level 20 and resistance at 5, which about killed me. Then Thursday I ran 3 miles on the treadmill. I simply dread running on the treadmill. Maybe I should call it the dreadmill. Its horribly boring and I don't run at a very consistent pace, so I always feel like I'm either going to fall off the treadmill or that I'm sort of intentionally dogging it to not run up the front. (I also may be the only person who has actually fallen off a treadmill twice. Once back during the year when Mark "Pumped Up" Maguire and Sammy "The Juiced" Sosa were going for the home run record, I was watching the Cubs game when Sammy cleared the fence for his 62nd home run to break what had been until a few days before, Roger Maris' long-time record. (And now as far as I am concerned, still is the record.) I was so caught up in the moment watching that I didn't realize I had slowed down and got shot out the back of the treadmill. The second time was at the U and I think I was messing around with the controls and wasn't paying attention and turned it up too fast without realizing it.) Any how, this week has not been particularly bright in terms of training.
Today's planned work-out was 7 miles, with a short walk at the 3 mile point to stretch. My hope was to hold something close to a ten-minute mile pace if I could. The first mile my ankle was very sore and I felt very tight. I still managed a 9:45 mile. I ran the second mile at 9:57 and still the ankle hadn't opened up, so I was wondering if I should go to the walk early, but decide to just take the third mile gently, I still managed a 9:55 for it and then grabbed a drink of water and walked for about 100 m or so. I had to finish my run by 1 pm in order to pick up Emilie on time, and I had to be under 10 minutes for each mile if to make it, so I decided just to run as far as I could before the time ran out.
Somewhere in the forth mile something changed. I like to run to Bruce Springstein and U2, and today was the Boss. Somewhere in the middle of "Badlands", "Out in the Streets", "Born to Run", "American Skin",and "This Train", I found that the muscles completely loosened up, the arteries unclogged, the lungs expanded, and the legs felt like they were barely touching the ground, as they cruised over the distance. The beat of the music and the rhythm of my body collapsed into a single feeling like I could run forever. For the next thirty five minutes I felt completely zoned into the moment and the universe. That is why I run.
Final time for 7 miles: 1:09:00.
