All Downhill From Here

Yes, I know I ran hilly 8k yesterday, but I had to get in another good, solid run this weekend in training for the 15k at Tampa in two weeks. Right after pancakes with the family I set some bread to rise and headed out on my usual boring flat out and back route along a busy boulevard. It’s a noisy route with no scenery and not even houses, just tall fences on either side, but the sidewalk is plowed and flat for a long blocks at a time, and it’s nice not to have complications when I just want to get a solid run done. Besides, the less I have to pay attention to outside my body, the more I can just withdraw inwards and think about stuff.

I must have gotten some good thinking done, because I only had 8km on my training plan and I did 10. Serves me right – last weekend I was supposed to do 14km and only did 12. To do 10 I have to decide at 3.5 km to carry on down a HUGE hill and then haul my butt back up. I was making really good time at 3.5 km, so carried on down the hill. It was very mild out today, 10C/50F! and I think I run MUCH better without all that bulky winter clothing.

I’m not saying I felt great or anything – my legs were achy I think from lactic acids built up on yesterday’s race, but I wasn’t really lethargic. They whined, but they kept on a-going. I thought of little blue arrows coming out of my legs like in a biology textbook, and the lactic acids leaving with them.

I hooked my inner self on a little song I learned from the Great Big Sea CD I bought last summer:
Let it go, let it go.
This is smaller than you know.
It’s no bigger than a pebble
lyin’ on a gravel road.

Let it go-o, let it go-o-o
Gotta leave it all behind you
Give the sun a chance to find you
Let it go!

This song has gotten me through a lot of stress in the last year 🙂

At one point I noticed that the snow that that had been pushed aside by the plough was melting on to the sidewalk in an interesting pattern. The concrete was darkened by the moisture in a wide stripe along maybe a third of the width of it. Where the manmade cracks between the sidewalk blocks occurred, the water had been drawn out farther onto the concrete, making spikes along the stripe, just like the visual screen on a hospital heartbeat monitor. It was fascinating,and I thought of how happy I am to be able to make my heart beat so strongly.

I was particularly pleased with my 10k time today – 1:05. Without a race number on, even!