The body is a funny thing

Plan, run to a point just over 5 miles away, run back, pick up a bottle of warm gatorade waiting inside the doorway, run to a point just over five miles away and run back.

Sounds simple enough. And that's what I did. Out, back, peel off the safety seal and discard, turn around, out, back.

Some time ago when I was still a teen, my dad was finishing work in the city with weekend approaching and discovered his car was on the fritz. We were 16 1/2 miles away in the cottage soaking up the east coast sun. He opted to walk to the cottage, thumbing to passing drivers hoping to pick up a lift. He got sporadic hits but had a sizeable trek that eventually brought him to the doorstep something like 4 hours later. In work shoes his feet were sore and blistered and he didn't do much moving around for a couple of days.

In finishing off 20 1/2 miles in a 3 hour period, I get home and stroll a couple of loops around the block to keep from getting too tight. My feet don't have many complaints, the ever present sore spot at the base of the middle toes on my right foot that may or may not ache after a run (it's been there since many years before I started running), a couple of toes have the skin just slightly abraided, nothing more than you would feel if someone accidentally dragged a leather purse over your foot, and a few stiff joints.

I run a distance, I run a bit for a couple of weeks, then I run a bit further than that. The schedule is burned into me like making Kraft Dinner. Monday rest...Tuesday take the trash out, if I feel good (no big run last weekend) then it's 5-6 miles of tempo. If I don't have the time or I'm stiff, maybe 4-5 miles of nothing much...Wednesday, alternate between a hill workout (long or short hills) or a track workout (10-12x400, 5-6x800 or 3-4x1600)...Thursday, try to get a bit of distance in, 10 miles is the target...Friday rest...Saturday I do what I feel like, could be 5-7 miles of tempo, could be 5 easy, could be 6 or 7 miles of muddy messy trail (which is the preferred option)...Sunday, long, sometimes very hard, sometimes just very easy.

And the body compensates. Give it work, it will happily accept more. Work the cycle...push, rest, push, rest. The cycles are short (easy day, hard day, easy day, hard day) and long (buildup period, recovery, sharpen, race, rest and recovery, base build...). I've reached the point where I know what I can hit when I can hit it and what I need to do to get there.

2 hour runs are nothing. I can do them anywhere anytime. Once you hit 3 hour territory you know you're not just another guy in shorts.

"Yeah, I was over to the track early this morning getting a few laps in"

I'm sure this is what the track walkers tell their spouses or friends or anyone else they talk to. They seem to have an affection for inside lane 1, the preferred lane for those for whom the measured track distances actually mean something...that being runners.

A typical high school or college track has 6 to 8 lanes, each 1.2 (it varies from track to track) meters in width and the inner most lane measuring out to precisely 400 meters. For a person executing an interval workout using a multiple of the set distance of 400 meters, that inner lane is crucial to having an accurate assessement of the workout and the current level of conditioning. Most walkers don't even know the lanes have a set distance, and many think all the lanes are the same distance...duh.

As I arrive this morning, not specifically to do a track workout but just to use the parameters to help set pace on this moderately easy run, I arrive in total darkness with the venue all to myself, opting to run clockwise this time to balance out impact forces inherent in running in continuous left turns in the conventional (counterclockwise) direction. As dawn breaks, they arrive and promptly start their stroll on the innermost lane drawn like a floating spitball spiralling towards the inner vortex of the bathtub water going down the drain. Sometimes they actually get mad at me, as though I'm invading their preallocated space. I'm pretty accomodating and will vere around them when necessary but I'm also not above ensuring they feel a sudden rush of sweat laden hot air blowing across their neckline...usually this prompts them to shift left (or right) 1.2 meters. Sometimes 2.4. Sometimes 8.4. Since a hard 400 will be accompanied by short explusions of saliva, this can also have an effect, keeping in mind this isn't intentional but it's surprising difficult to either spit or swallow at these times so fluids will go wherever air goes...mostly outward bound in random directions.

This morning I circuited the course 25 times to total 10,000 meters in a bit over 50 minutes, not including the kilometer between the track and my house and my warmup laps in the muddy confines of the nearby park. The walkers continued towards their habitual 8 to 10 laps which they'll complete some time long after I've left, their cardiovascular system thoroughly cleared by the rush of blood through their arteries. In all fairness, good for them to be out walking, but surely there must be far more interesting things to see along the streets than lane 1 of the local track.

Pitch Black

which is what greets me at 6:30 in the morning. The park system isn't lighted so you hope for cloud cover to reflect the streetlights back down, so at least you can see what your foot is about to step on. I managed to step ankle deep in a puddle as I was avoiding a glacier that formed over the pathway. One mile out I returned back to answer natures knock on my sphincter door, then 7ish miles out and back. It's really hard to see dogs at the time of the morning, you have to go by sound. I think the owl hooting in a tree down there was hoping for a nice tasty Shihtzu to take home for the yunguns.

Blonde Joke

I admit...I liked it.