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.