My Run This Past Wednesday

Wednesday morning I did not want to run. No, I would have preferred to go back to bed and sleep a couple of hours more. But I finally got myself going and stepped outside. Too cold!. I stepped back in and changed my clothes to something warmer. When I did start to run westward down my street I thought man,this wind is too strong, I'll just run my 3.4 mile route and then call it a day. But down the road, I got more used to the conditions and decided to run my 5.58 mile route. And then call it a day. As I kept running, though, I was still hanging in there, so I said to myself let's just see if I can fit another 5.58 cycle in there. Then after 11.16 miles, I said you know, you can set a personal distance record if you run a just few more miles. And I did, finally covering 15.26 miles before stopping. I felt that I could have gone longer, but I wanted some recovery time before I had to get ready to go to work. Although my legs and feet ached some during the last stages of the run, I suffered no cramping or aches after I stopped. And I ran it at a pretty brisk pace. So Wednesday turned out to be a very happy, happenin' day with my running despite its inauspicious beginning. Only eleven more miles to go for me to get to marathon distance!

I had written exactly one year ago on this blog an article about "runner's high" and how I would like to experience it again. And how I would need to begin to run longer distances to accomplish this. But although, for the past two months, I have dramatically increased the length of my runs, I have yet to experience any kind of exhilaration. Instead, I undergo a constant discomfort during my long runs, as if part of me is trying to convince the rest of me that I'd be much better off channel-surfing from my recliner at home. I've wondered why this is so, and I've come to one possible explanation. When I have done my long runs, I have been slightly pushing myself into that discomfort zone, as if another part of me understands what it takes to make substantial progress with my running. An instinct for progress: I like that!