BACK ON THE RUN

After ignoring my blog, I have found that my running has been sucking. It's been hot, I've been running with my teammates which makes me feel the need to race and doesn't give me a chance to go at my pace, I've had to schedule my runs around work, I've been having to run in the mornings when I'd rather run at night, my routes aren't that great, I've haven't been doing what I'm supposed to on my xc training schedule, and on and on. So as I said, my running has been sucking. At the beginning of my run today, which began at 8:00 and was a much cooler 79 degrees, I figured that my problem was that I needed to fall in love with running again. It shouldn't feel like every run is forced, it should feel good. I needed a magical run, something to show me that I have made progress and that I do love running. I found one of those runs today. I can actually post about how running is awesome, which is different than what I have been feeling.

I finished supper around 7:11 and I usually try to wait an hour afterwards before running but I needed to get my miles in before it got dark. I drove to a mile long trail that has marks every .1 along the loop. It's gravel and pretty flat. There's a lot of trees and enough people to let me race someone but without feeling crowded. I do a lot of my summer training along this mile long loop and the surrounding neighborhoods. It gives me a comfortable feeling because I know I don't have to race anyone but can if I want to.

My first mile felt slow. I took Saturday off so my legs were kind of tight. I was going to do 6 or 7 miles if I could fit them in before darkness but I wasn't sure if my legs would let me. I had been running about 8 minute miles on my runs so I was pretty surprised when I passed my first mile in 7:36. I thought I had started out too fast like I have before but it didn't even feel like I was going that fast. I didn't try to speed up and passed the second mile in 15:11 or 15:18.

The third mile was the hardest. I could feel myself slowing down and kept telling myself not to let me feel that. If I didn't let myself know I was getting slower than I wouldn't. I was getting slower though, and was at 22:55 at the third mile.

I realized that I could break 45 minutes, the unreachable number. So I took off. The fourth mile was at 30:15, the fifth at 37:30, and the sixth at 44:36. I broke 45 minutes and didn't feel that exhausted when I was done. This run meant that my miles have been doing something for me.

I can't get myself motivated to run miles in the heat for xc season. This run taught me that maybe I should just run for now. I don't have to train for something that seems far off, I can train for what I can do now. Each run should be me trying to do my best so I can improve now and not later. The hills I've been doing will improve me later but I have to let myself show the improvement sometimes. I have to love running in order to improve. And after this run, I realized that I do.