Bipolar Running

For those of you who have been reading this blog, you already know the ups and downs of my recent running life. Thus the title of this entry. One day I’m okay, the next day my ankle is so painful that I don’t know how the next run is going to turn out, some days I can only do the 4:1 run/walk intervals, then there are very rare days like today, when everything: the breathing, the legs, and the ankles felt good, so much so that I was able to take my fellow runners on a different kind of run.

The past few days, I’ve been in a bind intestinally, so to speak (there you go, TMI again). I don’t know if that affected the ammonia levels in my bloodstream, but I felt like my mind wasn’t so clear, somewhat like a semi-stupor when I woke up. I thought it was just sleepiness, but the fogginess remained for much of the morning, even after the run.

So we started the run slowly and hit the first mile at about 10 minutes and 30 seconds. The lungs felt good and so did the ankles, so we upped the pace slightly on the second mile, then over three and four miles Linda and I were joined by two other runners (Cindy and Rene). We threw in a few fartlek pickups in between our base pace and by the time we finished, we had averaged 9:19 over 6.2 miles. Considering that the first mile was 10:30, bringing it down to an average pace of 9:19 over 6.2 miles was a big jump. It was a totally unexpected and unplanned workout and the result was surprisingly good. And everyone liked the change of pace. If my ankles hold up, maybe we can do more of the fartlek type workouts during the shorter runs.

From a depressive run result a few days ago due to ankle pains, to the euphoria of having a good run today, that’s what I consider Bipolar Running.

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