by I have a thousand other things I should/need to be doing but I decided to take a break.
My runs have been fantastic lately. This last week was more resting than running, but I had three runs. Three get-that-shit-eating-grin-off-my-face-it’s-so-good runs. Runs that make you love being a runner. Rocking runs.
I took Monday through Wednesday off, with a brisk 3-mile walk on Tuesday. Thursday, I had my usual Dr. Stephanie run at Lady Bird Lake; we did our modified 5-mile loop as per usual, chatting the whole way, and I felt like a million bucks. It helped that I had my extremely stressful school obligation out of the way and I was running to let steam off. The legs felt good and hardly tired at all. It’s amazing the difference in the way I feel after a slow slog-it-out marathon and a hard I-want-to-run-this-pace effort.
I took Friday off and had a massage scheduled in the afternoon. I hadn’t mentioned to my massage therapist that I’d done a marathon (I just said I’d done a long road road. Isn’t part of knowing you’re an addict lying about what and how much you did?) and she complimented me on what good shape my quads were in, that I must be doing a good job with my foam rolling and stretching. There were no sore spots to work on, no foot pain to massage away, no knotted hamstrings to unwind.
Saturday started with an 8 a.m. soccer game in Schertz. I hit St. Eds/Forest Ridge as soon as we got back, around 11 a.m. I decided that I would limit myself to 45 minutes out for a total of 1:30 running. I expected to be slow…I flew up the hill, hitting the first gate in my faster time range. Honestly, I felt like a machine. I had to tell myself to stop at :45 and not finish; that wasn’t the point. I turned around and worked the run back, making for a serious negative split. At the car, I felt like I’d just gotten started.
I’d scheduled a Tri a Trail run on the greenbelt for Sunday. I didn’t get there quite as early as I’d intended, so I only got in about 30 minutes prior to the run. Only one runner showed up, so it was the two of us traipsing along at a pace comfortable for my friend — it was her first trail run anywhere other than at Walnut Creek. We spent 45 minutes from the 360 access exploring the trails.
Back to the car, and I met another friend, Pam, for an hour run. We took off and ran to the secret spring. Now, Pam is into geocaching and she has introduced me to it (I WILL NOT get hooked!). I said, “You KNOW there’s got to be a geocache around here somewhere!” Well, there was, so we took a slight detour through the Grotto and up Humpback in order to find it. Success! We booked it on back to 360 — it was so nice having Pam there to make me shake the legs out and pick up the pace! Our total time on foot (including the geocache wandering about) was 1:50, so with all three expeditions, I covered 3:00 on my feet. Perfect running for the week after a road marathon!
I’ll be out at Bandera next weekend and then I’ll probably hit Bastrop for a run of some long amount of time on my feet. Then, back on the greenbelt for the roundtrip and the 100K is the following weekend! I’m pleased with how my training is turning out and happy to be feeling so good.
Feet fail me not!
