Waking up to the alarm clock in
mid-dream isn’t the best way to rise for the day but that was exactly what
happened Saturday morning at 5 o’clock. It must have been a good dream because
my first impulse was to turn the darn alarm off and resume the pre-alarm
reverie. But, I’ve been looking forward to this run all week so I jumped out of
bed before I could even press the snooze button. Wait, wait, I can’t do any
more jumping whether it’s out of bed or elsewhere. Let me rephrase. I rose
slowly out of bed before getting tempted to press the snooze button. After the
usual routine of using the bathroom and checking email, I donned my running
garb for the day. It was another surprisingly cool summer morning so I opted
for a t-shirt day instead of a tanktop. It wasn’t one of those bare buns runs
so I put on a pair of running shorts too. After tightening the shoelaces of my
Asics Gel Foundation very snuggly, I was all set and headed out the door for
the short drive to Joe’s Crab Shack.
My
previous warm up routine before both ankles were seriously injured was a mile
to a mile and a half of slow running with a few strideouts towards the end.
Nowadays, I am only able to do a few short jogs so as to save the ankles for
the pounding that was to come later.
I didn’t
know who I would be able to pace with on this day but I espied Rosie, who I’d
run with before, and her pace matched mine at the start so I joined up with
her. She was one of those girls that I couldn’t catch up with three weeks ago
when I started running again. For the first couple of miles I felt that I might
be able to until later when I may have to do some walk breaks.
It was
one of those busy weekends in Long Beach along our running route. Between miles
2 and 3, there were dragon boat races going on at the beach side, so we had to
run on the street side. We passed this area on the way out and on the way back.
Somehow the dragon boat races didn’t look as crowded as in previous years. Anyway,
Rosie and I chatted until club president Todd caught up with us, upon which we
talked briefly about his and Rosie’s dog. I could feel the pace gradually pick
up since Todd is a lot faster than us even though he was chopping his stride. I
brought this to their attention so Rosie and I pulled back while Todd forged
on. Rosie and I had a couple of pictures taken while coming and going at this
point. Our club VP and intrepid photographer Dave just got back from Rwanda and
Brussels and we missed him taking our photos while he was gone. We joined up
with Nancy at about 4 miles and talked about real estate, wine, Rosie’s and my
jobs, and Long Beach marathon history, which, helped me dissociate from the
anticipation of pain in my ankles. While all this was going on we barely noticed
that we had made it to 6 ½ miles. Nancy had to stop to re-tie her shoelaces so
it was up to Rosie to bring me home to the finish. And bring me home she did
and we even managed to tack on an extra half mile, thus completing 8 ½ miles
for the day! In mid-run, I asked Rosie what her usual pace is for long runs and
she said 10:30 to 11:00. The woman had that pace dialed in because when I
checked my watch at the end, our pace was 10:28. I thanked her profusely and felt
so happy that I forgot to stretch afterwards. I only remembered about it on the
way home and did it when I arrived. Did
I have any ankle pain? That goes without saying, however it was more of a dull
rather than intense pain and that was most likely due to the distraction of
talking with people while running.
So how times in the previous week
and how many miles of running did I do? Forget about minimalist shoes, this is
minimalist training at its best. Last Tuesday, I ran/walk for 4 ½ miles then my
only other run (without any walk breaks by the way!) was the 8 ½ miles on
Saturday. Hurray! Almost a half marathon for the whole week! You won’t hear any
complaints from me. After all I managed to run didn’t I?
Postscript: My pee was slightly dark yellow post-run because
I sweated 3 pounds of fluids, but ingesting 48 ounces of fluids later, I was
back to normal hydration.
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