Push

After waffling over whether or not I was going to get in my final run of the week, all it took was seeing some neighbors doing Crossfit in the driveway on the way back from the grocery store on Sunday evening. Sure, it was past 7 o’clock and it was raining, but I was immediately overcome with the urge to go out and get it done. I disappeared into the bedroom while Olga unpacked the groceries and, eventually, reappeared in the kitchen in full-on running garb wearing a headlamp and looking for a handheld. She was definitely surprised and happy to see me eager to go out in the cool, rainy night and run on the trail.

I am spoiled, though. It’s much easier to make snap decisions on running the trails when it’s less than a 3 minute walk from the front door to technical, hilly trails. I passed by the cross-fitters and gave them a nod and thought, “That’s right! You can play in your driveway, but I’m going to go have much more fun banging out an hour run on slick, rocky, technical, muddy trails in the dark and throw in a few good creek crossings along the way!”. The fog on the high ridges definitely didn’t do me any favors being able to see the trail. The rain, which was illuminated in the beam of my headlamp made it challenging enough to see the trail.

I ran almost 70 trail miles for the week and, for the first time ever, I’m not feeling it. That may not seem like many miles for a lot of people, but it is for me. I believe it was a good decision to forego running for the first 2 weeks after the Hood Hundred. It allowed me to recover more. Afterwards, I still struggled in ramping back up the miles and was cautious along the way. I’ve always been a low mileage runner and when I get past 60 miles for the week, my legs, typically, revolt. They did 2 weeks ago when I ran just over 60 miles. Of course, the Saturday massage by Olga definitely helped. Possibly, I’m beginning to acclimate to the higher weekly mileage, which I’m pleased. I don’t think there’s a substitute to high mileage running to perform better in races with one caveat—minimize the junk miles! Yesterday, I definitely enjoyed my “rest day”. This morning, I was back in the gym after a month-plus long hiatus. I’m certain to feel that workout when I go out and run tonight. No complaints, though. And, at this point, my mantra is “every workout and every run counts, so give it your best effort and do not let up”. And, when I start to feel the discomfort during a run, I ask myself out loud “how bad do you want it?”. I answer by pushing harder.