Yeah, so I ran home from work on Tuesday. Why the hell not? Roughly eleven miles, give or take some parking lots, and 95 minutes total (counting the blessed Barnes & Noble water stop on Brodie), 88 minutes running time. If you didn’t know, and I guess I never really thought about it, South Lamar is uphill the whole way. Oh, and it’s directly into the 5 o’clock sun. Brutal, brutal sun. I got a lot of looks from passersby and bus stop flotsam. One guy in a car actually stopped and rolled down his window. I was ready to duck but he just stared for a few seconds, shook his head, waved and drove off. The hardest part? Carrying the laptop! I kid of course.
After the B&N stop it was actually rather pleasant, but I’m not too delusional to admit that first 6 or 7 miles was tough. Lack of water sucked, and our city’s crappy sidewalks, and the clueless drivers and their fuming cars. And did I mention the 5 o’clock sun? No? Well, it was bright and yellow. I forgot my hat, wrapped my shirt like a turban and slogged on. Geez, it was only eleven miles, won’t be an every day thing, but I’ll do it again, wait until the Fall though. Did I mention the 5 o’clock sun?
Tempo this morning, new PR, big surprise that, a needed motivational boost. Driving in this morning I was preparing myself for a sub-par run. “I’m just getting slower and fatter. All this solo slow running is just making me … slow. And fat.” Slow Slow Slow. More cookies please? Sure, pie is fine. Throw in another nine minute mile while you’re at it.
Anyway, a relatively cool morning and no doubles this week conspired I guess for a good run. 6:17, 6:05, 5:45, 5:36. Gilbert yelled 23:47 when I crossed the line but I had 23:45 on my watch. Thanks to the guy I drafted off of (oh no, not that classy move again!) for pulling me to my first time ever under 24 minutes. Well, I didn’t really draft, I just couldn’t catch him (someone said his name was Scott?). I led the first mile then he took over the next 2.5 and ran like a champ while I was happy to be along for the ride. I never felt labored and hit it pretty hard the last 600 meters in my patented “let the other guy do all the work then pass him at the end” move. Gee, I can’t understand why people talk under the breath about me and never want to run with me. Really, I think I was just in a hurry to get home so Jessica wouldn’t be late for work and I could get the kids to school. After the finish I basically ran straight to my car and high-tailed it home.
So anyway, a couple of interesting runs. But the best one was yesterday, when I ran three miles with Jessica. Awww…..
A lady at church hounds me to write. Not this blog, just in general. “A sentence?” she asks. “A grocery list? Anything?” Nothing, I tell her. “One must always put pen to paper when one is a writer. You are a writer. Writer’s must write.” A Londoner, she has that glorious British way of speaking. A friend of my mother’s for 50 years, she’s of course known me my entire life. She thinks I’m a writer. Just recently she asked, “still working for the newspaper?” That was nearly a decade ago. I used to could write. I used to could want to write. Now. Nothing.
Should I even bother with the running? 64 and 63 miles the last two weeks, I’ve never felt more tired, to-the-bone tired. Oh well, push through. Ten mile MGP run yesterday. (”What are you training for?” “Nothing.”) Three minutes slower than the same run at the same time last year. This year was effort, last year was energizing. Chalk it up to the heat? The lack of inspiration? Fourteen on the trail Saturday, from 10:30 a.m. to noon, stopped every 2 miles for water. Barton Springs never felt better. Never. Better. Anything else? Mile repeats last Tuesday, shock to the system. Running hard is hard. The mental battle is the toughest part, so used to easy, slow, solo runs. Battling through the urge to stop must be re-learned.
Talking recently with someone about running, I said, “I only run when I’m running.”
Is the library depressing? All those unread books, untold hours of toil and sweat by the authors, gathering dust and losing meaning. I imagine the author’s excitement as their baby was accepted by an publisher, as their words went to press, now just yellowed pages on the bottom shelf, thirty years old, irrelevant. Like this blog.
I’m going to run home.
a few weeks ago i resolved to quit posting my life on the web, including this blog, but elsewhere too. i kept hearing people refer to things on here and say things that didn’t seem very nice. most of them were probably joking, and its my own fault, what can you expect for the narcissism? [...]
Seventy miles two weeks ago with some good tempo miles in there. Felt the effects last week and cut the mileage to 40ish. Knob blog was hacked last week. Sold, bought and moved houses the last couple of days. Final 10k trail race on Sunday morning.
A repost of an email race report:
Conditions were nice [...]
Friday morning’s three-mile run was one of the worst in recent memory. Which is odd because Friday afternoon’s six-miler was one of the best. It’s often like that, this running doubles. One just slogs through, then feels great, then terrible again. And boy did I slog on that three-miler. Finishing in doubt, all achy and [...]