- Ran 3 miles last night, it's the first time I've run back to back days in several months. Have one more 3 miler tonight before I run the "long" one this weekend of 7 miles. That'll put the weekly total at 21 miles, Sunday to Saturday. I'm good with that.
- Started trying to get our music library organized last night. Holy crap is it a mess. Duplicates all over the place, even duplicate songs within folders. It's a long term project. Ugh.
- Heading to Houston this weekend with the whole family; we've been trying to get down there for a while, but the stars appear to have finally aligned and we're headed out tomorrow. Now, as long as the dreaded stomach flu that's going around doesn't take us down...
It's good to be back on a training plan for running. The schedule I posted a few days ago, assuming I follow it, will take me right up to the LR Marathon. I started running consistently (using that term rather loosely) in June or July of 2009, and J and I did a training cycle for the December 2009 Las Vegas Marathon. Well, I should say that J finished the cycle and actually ran the marathon; I ended up in trial around the time that training was the heaviest, and I dropped to the half. But even doing the half was fantastic - running 13 miles at once is still sort of mind boggling.
I tried to start another marathon training cycle in January of this year, but almost immediately got injured after ramping up too fast. Then my tennis season hit (my first love), and I focused on that until September or so. I really let the running slide during that time. So here it is November, and I'm hoping to throw together a decent training cycle for the 2011 LR marathon in March.
It sounds strange, but one of the things I miss the most about being in a training cycle is the long runs. Not the 5 and 6 milers - those are sort of run of the mill - but the 10+ milers. For these, you really don't have a choice but to drop into a sort of meditative, almost hypnotic state. You know you are going to be out there for two hours or more (I'm slow), so you switch your brain off and just let your body do its thing. It's not a matter of trying to rush to finish, because it's not possible to "rush" 10+ miles - at least, not for me. You just have to get through them. And when you are done, everything feels sort of husked out and gritty, and you have this sense of satisfaction that your body covered that kind of distance. You develop an awe over what the human body is capable of doing, and not just in the abstract. This was your body that covered that kind of distance, even though a few months ago it seemed laughable. So you go home, take the best hot shower in the world, eat everything in sight, possibly catch a nap for an hour or so, and hope that you won't be too sore the next day. And sometime in the next week notice that your legs have muscles they've never had, your body feels stronger all around, and you feel really good about what you are doing.
Don't get me wrong, I've not done that many "long runs" in my short running career - I think my longest run to date was somewhere around a 16 miler. I've done far more 3, 4, 5, and 6 milers, and right now, the idea of the 7 miler scheduled this weekend sounds a bit daunting. I don't think I've run anything longer than 6 miles since the Little Rock Half back in March. So it's not like I have a terrific baseline for starting this cycle. At the same time, I really do want to knock this monkey off my back one of these days. Maybe I just want to shoot the middle finger at all the times in my life I mocked my "running ability." I may not be very fast, but dammit, I am a runner. Now I just want to be a runner who has finished a marathon - that's not too much to ask, right? It may or may not happen this training cycle, but it certainly can never happen if I don't give it a try.
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