Ever have one of those days when you are running and your feet feel as heavy as bricks? Well, last Thursday was one of those days for me as I plodded through a 52 minute run that felt like the last 6 miles of a marathon, but without the cramps. Then all of a sudden, two days later, on Saturday morning, I felt so good and I don’t know why. After doing the 4 minute run/1 minute walk intervals with Sonja for about 4 miles (Sonja was doing 8 miles), I tried to catch up with Cyndi and Linda who were running non-stop for 12 miles, by intercepting them at a certain cross street. We ran together for about a mile but I began feeling a little frisky and started picking up the pace on my own. I still did the 4:1 intervals but a little bit differently. Instead of running and walking, I picked up the pace for 4 minutes and slowly jogged for 1 minute while I ran back to Cyndi and Linda. I was able to keep this up for the last 7 miles of the 12 mile run except for about 3 minutes it took to cover the distance on Bayshore Avenue from Ocean Boulevard to Second Street, where running single file is the norm. By running hard for 4 minutes and jogging back, I was able to complete 12 miles despite cutting the course to catch up with the two ladies. I could feel my right ankle tendon protesting at times but the pain was tolerable and didn’t get worse. Thank goodness for that!
Running, like life, can feel different from day to day, or as Forrest Gump said “Life (substitute "running" here) is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get”. I wish I could feel the way I did on Saturday all the time where the pace was hard but still felt controlled. Of course that’s not always possible because we all have bad days and good days. Savor the good days and get through the bad days, because even the bad ones feel so much better after you finish.
Postscript: The reason why I felt the need to run a little harder last Saturday was to burn off the excess calories I consumed during the two days I was showing my former classmate around town, as documented in my previous blog post: http://noeldlp.blogspot.com/2010/01/unblogged-weekend.html
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