It was nice outside this morning, but it looked like a storm was coming. I had a meeting scheduled for 11:15, but I figured it would be over by lunch, which is when I usually head out. But then I got a phone call from the piano tuner. He was scheduled to be here at 12:15. Of course, he didn’t actually get here until almost 12:30. And the storm clouds were dark and menacing. But I decided to run anyway, because that’s what you do.<\/p>\n
Most of the first mile was pretty rough. I switched from my 3\/4 to my 2\/3 pattern for breathing sooner than normal. That made me wonder if I was sick, or didn’t sleep well last night. As I headed up the hill to the round-about, my feet felt really heavy. It seemed this run would be even worse than Tuesday’s run, which was fairly upsetting, since I took a full day off from everything yesterday. I really wanted to switch to walking at the top of that hill, but I didn’t. As I ran towards the park in the center of The Cedars, I kept thinking that if I pushed too hard at first that the rest of the run would be even worse… shuffling. I kept pushing those thoughts out, but I did finally start walking about half way around the park. And then something amazing happened. I caught my breath pretty quickly. I started running again before I reached the road out to Canyon. I ran all the way and felt really good. I was focusing on leading with my knees and letting my feet kick up behind me. It worked.<\/p>\n
The next thing I knew, I was back to the park, back to the round-about, and heading down to the church. I rounded that corner and headed up the next hill. It was a struggle to keep my breathing on rhythm, and I switched to walking again where someone carved the Van Halen logo into the sidewalk. It’s not far from there to the corner and I started running again half way up that hill. I didn’t stop again until I was home. That last mile really felt good. A few times I even thought I may need to start adding more distance to my run, but I wasn’t that crazy today.<\/p>\n
The storm never came. I stayed ahead of it and set my new personal record for the loop. 33:25.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was nice outside this morning, but it looked like a storm was coming. I had a meeting scheduled for 11:15, but I figured it would be over by lunch, which is when I usually head out. But then I … Continue reading