Before I start typing shit that no one, including me, cares about, I am coming clean that I missed my already shortened goal of 25 miles lumbered last week by 5 miles. It was the second failed week in a row.
Or was it?
I should care, but I don’t because while I fell short of my mileage goal, I managed the blister on my left foot and had two of my best “runs” ever. Something not entirely difficult since I have only been “running” (looks at watch) for about 3 or 4 weeks now, and I only started to because, for some unknown reason, the foot and knee issues I was dealing with for most of the summer actually felt better running than hiking.
So I am running now. Or at least my version of it, which falls somewhere between walking and almost falling while trying not to puke as I leave a pungent trail of sweat and dank fart in my wake. Form is overrated.
After a weekend of beer and football-fueled slack and sloth that only included a short, photoless1 4-mile hike early Sunday, I was eager to get back to doing stuff on Monday morning.
Despite that eagerness to get back to running/lumbering, I was predictably not mentally all there and was having a lot of trouble convincing myself that what I was doing wasn’t the dumbest thing ever and should be stopped immediately. To be fair, I have these same thoughts getting out of bed every morning.
Thankfully, I have a lot of experience in 1. Doing stupid shit. And 2. Convincing myself that the stupid shit I’m doing is not all that stupid. Of course, 2. is usually done with the aid of mind-altering substances. I digress.
I eventually came around, and while I wasn’t feeling my best, I rallied and pushed myself to complete the 5.25-mile course in 1:04:17, which apparently is 52 seconds better than the last time I lumbered/ran the same loop.
It’s hard to maintain doing stupid shit without goals, and while my goal SHOULD be to run the entire loop without walking, I don’t think that will happen any time soon, given the variables that come with trail running. And, despite my advanced age and many failed attempts, I am actually pretty new to the act of running outside (off of a treadmill). Instead, I am focusing on time with the goal of doing this 5.25-ish mile course in under an hour. Something that will come in time and will likely coincide with running nearly all of it and/or becoming faster through muscle adpation.
I guess I am basically duping myself into doing the stupid shit I do faster so that it seems less like stupid shit to me, and as a result, I become a better runner. Or at least someone doing stupid shit faster 2.
Later.
- Seriously, where the hell are all the critters??
- The idea of duping myself reminded me of a discussion I had with one of B’s club soccer coaches one time concerning fitness. He said that, for the most part, the days of running players into the ground to improve fitness have been replaced by the practice drills that the players do, which require them to sprint, attack, defend, recover, etc. He doesn’t need to make them run laps until they pass out or other bullshit because they’re covering that ground during the drills. Before they know it, they’ve covered 5K or more in a night’s practice. Much more fun than telling a 17-year-old to run laps around the pitch.