Marathon By 40

Yesterday I went for my weekly long run. The plan called for 7 miles, which was a new longest distance for me. It took a few miles to get into a rhythm, but by mile 3 I was feeling good.

When I returned home 1:38′ later (including a 5min warm up and 8 minute walk-back/cool down) I checked my Nike+ report and was happy to see a PB for both my 5 and 6 mile splits. It felt great to run farther than I ever had before and still get PB splits.

However, the rest of the night was brutal. My ankles and the outside of my shins felt as if someone had been beating them with a bat all afternoon. I didn’t feel this pain while I was running, it came on quickly after I showered. All evening I was hobbling around and I went to bed in real discomfort. I was afraid I would be hobbling all day today.

Well, I have been quite pleasantly surprised to experience absolutely no pain today. I’m hoping that I’ll experience similar recovery times this week as I get back on track with interval training before taking on my next long-run, an 8-miler at the end of the month.

A while ago I wrote about what fun it would be to run the same courses as several famous real and fictional runs.

On a whim tonight a buddy and I (in Philly for the week on business) decided to run up the steps. I use the term “run” loosely, as there were many lights we had to stop for and lots of pedestrian traffic to work around. But, it was a good jog. It wasn’t a wet snow like I mentioned in the original post, but 40F was plenty cold enough, thank you very much.

Our hotel is just over a mile away from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. We ended up running to the museum, going up the steps, posing for pictures, then running along the river, up Race to City Hall, on to the Liberty Bell, and then to the Comcast Building lobby (to see the amazing video wall - it must be seen to be comprehended) before heading back to the hotel.

It sounds goofy, but after going up the steps, we felt invincible (yes, another Philly-movie pun) and just kept going on to the other sites.

If you’re at all nostalgic or sentimental for the movie, don’t pass up the opportunity if you get it.

That’s one historical (albeit fictional) run down. Wonder when I’ll get a chance for another.

Normally I don’t write about specific runs here on the blog. I’ll generally add notes to each run as recorded on Runner+ and I reserve this space for more general topics. But I couldn’t help but share my sense of accomplishment regarding the mini-milestone I achieved this evening.

Tonight I ran my first 10k.

Wow. That was fun. I used a 3min/1min run/walk mix to run my first 10k workout. Other than making the mistake of not warming up, it went great. I started jogging right out the front door thinking that I was running so far I should just blend the warm-up into the distance. Bad idea. My shins started throbbing 10 minutes in and it took another 15 minutes to run it out. But after that I just got stronger and stronger as the run went on and generally had negative splits the rest of the distance.

I think I can call myself a runner now. Not because of a distance milestone, and certainly not because of any speed accomplishments, but simply because I’m actually crazy enough to enjoy this. I’ve learned that I really love to run.