In Medias Race

For the most part, week 8 was pretty unremarkable. Life calmed down and things have gone almost back to normal. The long run for the week was 9 miles. I intended to get up and run with our local running group, but at 5:30 in the morning, it is easy to talk yourself into staying in bed. I went out a few hours later on my own. I don’t run in my neighborhood that often. I was not really sure why, until this run. My intuition to avoid my neighborhood for long runs was spot on. According to my Apple Watch, up to this point my highest elevation gain had been about 220 feet. So I as I set out to do nine miles in what I thought was my moderately hilly neighborhood, I gained 424 feet. My neighborhood is some sort of geographic anomaly. Every time I turned a corner, I was headed uphill, again. My pace was the slowest it has been in a while, and it was a good reminder that I need to train in hillier areas if I am actually going to be prepared for a race.

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For that afternoon, we had planned a short family hike at Red Rock State Park. I didn’t really think this through. Red Rock has a handful of relatively easy hikes. You basically hike up a small reservoir and back down. It is a great place to take kids hiking because the inclines are manageable and there are fun rick structures to climb. Recent storms had washed out some of the trails and what was supposed to be an easy 4 mile hike with about a mile on flat land turned into a 5 mile hike going mostly up or down hill. I was not ready to basically complete more than a half marathon in day. However, I made it, and I was not as sore as I expected I would be the next day. My knee that I am having trouble with was pretty angry, but a round of ice and Ibuprofen seemed to appease it for the time being.

After I got over my annoyance and my knee calmed down, I was thankful not only for the family time, but also the opportunity to get in some extra hill work and realize that my body could actually complete 13.1 miles in one day. Plus, while flat courses are nice, they can get monotonous and it is easy to become complacent. Part of the fun of this process, and in life, is the challenge. Rising to an occasion; pushing yourself beyond your pre-conceived limits; conquering our hills and mountains. If every day was a nice, flat course, we would never progress and we wouldn’t be prepared for those more challenging and surprising courses we find ourselves on.

The next challenge is to find out if I can complete those miles in one go.