Grinning From Ear to Ear

Sophie & Noel before the run

Somebody please help me wipe the smile off my face. No, not because of the picture above, although that one makes me smile too – that’s my friend Sophie, the fartlek girl from a previous blog (just look up what fartlek means please). Thanks for the picture Sophie J, very sweet of you. The smile on my face is a result of today’s run where the unplanned happened.

When I woke up this morning, I was undecided on what to do – walk for 10 miles, or run/walk like I did last weekend, specially when my left knee started hurting yesterday for no apparent reason. This is of course in addition to my bad right ankle.

When I got to the staging area, a few runners were already starting their runs early, so as soon as my GPS watch connected to the satellites up above, I took off. I saw Linda up ahead so I missed my first walk break catching up with her. When I caught up with her, we started talking about our strategy for today’s run. She said she was running for 7 minutes and taking a walking break for 1 minute and I said I was doing a 4 minute run and 1 minute walk break. Linda was so nice to offer to run with me doing the 4/1 intervals up to the point where the course separates between the 10 milers (me) and the 18 milers (Linda). So as we continued chatting the distance and time seemed to go by quicker and more comfortably. When we got near the point where we had to go our separate ways, I told Linda that I really wanted to see what the course looked like inside California State University Long Beach. I figured I could just find a shortcut on the way back if my right ankle wasn’t feeling up to it. Well with all the chatting we did and touring the university campus I didn’t even check how many miles we had already run until we were at 9 miles. If you remember, that was the distance I walked 2 weeks ago with the trekking poles, and I ran/walked last week. I definitely would be going beyond 10 miles today. How much farther depended on how much my right ankle would cooperate. My left knee wasn’t too much of an issue, thankfully. As we ran, a few people passed us, and we even passed a few, and this is in spite of doing the walk breaks because we were doing pretty well during the run intervals. When we reached what was supposed to be my shortcut point, I kept running with Linda but I told her I was going to turn around where the 16 mile cut-off was. I figured I had gone way past my goal for the day and didn’t want to flirt with disaster and aggravate my right ankle again. So when I made the U-turn at Ocean Boulevard, Linda continued towards the Peninsula for two more extra miles to complete her 18 miler. I was sorry that I couldn’t provide her company for the whole 18 miles, but she understood. In the meantime I had 2 more miles to go. I was feeling discomfort on my right ankle but surprisingly it was occurring during the walking part. Strange, huh?

Well to make an already long story short, I managed to run for 16 miles today and that made me very happy. That’s why I have been grinning from ear to ear from the time I finished the run up to this time five hours later. I was pleasantly surprised at what my ankle was able to give me today. But I extend my utmost gratitude and appreciation to Linda who sacrificed her own plans so I could indulge mine.

What did I do to treat myself for today’s achievement? I had some super nachos for lunch which I haven’t had in a long time J.

Linda & Noel @ about 8 miles