Weekend Warrior
I'm currently reduced to weekend warrior status. Just hanging on trying to get in enough mileage so that I don't totally lose all fitness I've accumulated.
I've learned alot from not running as well. I haven't become miserable or impossible to live with, but by the same token that extra hour or two in my life hasn't led me to write War & Peace, but it has let me fend off sleep deprivation and help make sure that I'm not an unprepared blathering idiot two times a week when I teach a 2 1/2 hour class at Penn. Its hot enough so that there's days when I'm happy I'm not running, but that little nagging feeling is in the back of my mind that I should be running. I hear it, but it doesn't dominate.
Most of all I've learned that it takes a certain ruthlessness about training to make it through a period like this with keeping my training intact. You either sacrifice some work or some sleep, and family time, especially on travels, would have to get rearranged around the running schedule. I'm not on that level, and where a year ago it might have bothered me this year its okay. Things'll pick up again.
So whoever reads this, don 't check in every day as for at least another week or two the runs and the blogs will come sporadically. We'll see how things go then in August.
Oh yeah, the runs. Yesterday, after we got home from Rhode Island, I ran off into the sunset which would have been there if it wasn't for the haze and the clouds. Steambath, rainforest, greenhouse, you pick your metaphor but it was awful running weather. I ran the 8 mile loop up to Sweetbriar. Ran the Schuylkill bike path and got to see all the new landscaping they are putting in for which they've been closing down the path on the weekdays. Also got to run down Lex St. in the dark. The weeds that have grown high over where the houses once stood cast long shadows that really did give the block a feeling of being haunted, or at least forsaken. 8 miles in 64:47, pace on MLK was just sub 8. And my legs, which should have felt well rested, had the nerve to feel stiff, esp. in the ankles. But I didn't push them.
Today I ran home from St. Vincents. Again it was awful sticky and wet conditions. The pace was slow as I ran along the muddy brown Wissahickon and I sped things up on Kelly Drive (4 in 30:11) and then slowed only a bit to get home. Nicest part of the run was along the Wiss, all browns and greens and overgrown silence save for the background whooshes of the cars going up Lincoln Drive. Later on the sweat drenched me and stung my eyes, even though I had a cap to keep it from running into my eyes. 10 miles in 83:19.
I'll be in DC tomorrow, which actually may let me do three in a row as there is a track near where my sister lives (with whom I'll be staying). If there is then I will post.
I've learned alot from not running as well. I haven't become miserable or impossible to live with, but by the same token that extra hour or two in my life hasn't led me to write War & Peace, but it has let me fend off sleep deprivation and help make sure that I'm not an unprepared blathering idiot two times a week when I teach a 2 1/2 hour class at Penn. Its hot enough so that there's days when I'm happy I'm not running, but that little nagging feeling is in the back of my mind that I should be running. I hear it, but it doesn't dominate.
Most of all I've learned that it takes a certain ruthlessness about training to make it through a period like this with keeping my training intact. You either sacrifice some work or some sleep, and family time, especially on travels, would have to get rearranged around the running schedule. I'm not on that level, and where a year ago it might have bothered me this year its okay. Things'll pick up again.
So whoever reads this, don 't check in every day as for at least another week or two the runs and the blogs will come sporadically. We'll see how things go then in August.
Oh yeah, the runs. Yesterday, after we got home from Rhode Island, I ran off into the sunset which would have been there if it wasn't for the haze and the clouds. Steambath, rainforest, greenhouse, you pick your metaphor but it was awful running weather. I ran the 8 mile loop up to Sweetbriar. Ran the Schuylkill bike path and got to see all the new landscaping they are putting in for which they've been closing down the path on the weekdays. Also got to run down Lex St. in the dark. The weeds that have grown high over where the houses once stood cast long shadows that really did give the block a feeling of being haunted, or at least forsaken. 8 miles in 64:47, pace on MLK was just sub 8. And my legs, which should have felt well rested, had the nerve to feel stiff, esp. in the ankles. But I didn't push them.
Today I ran home from St. Vincents. Again it was awful sticky and wet conditions. The pace was slow as I ran along the muddy brown Wissahickon and I sped things up on Kelly Drive (4 in 30:11) and then slowed only a bit to get home. Nicest part of the run was along the Wiss, all browns and greens and overgrown silence save for the background whooshes of the cars going up Lincoln Drive. Later on the sweat drenched me and stung my eyes, even though I had a cap to keep it from running into my eyes. 10 miles in 83:19.
I'll be in DC tomorrow, which actually may let me do three in a row as there is a track near where my sister lives (with whom I'll be staying). If there is then I will post.
posted by seebo | 1:35 PM
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