For the past 3 years or so that I've been doing the Saturday morning
walk at Signal Hill with the Long Beach and Palos Verdes Peninsula Walkers Meet Up
group, I've either just walked the whole course, walked and ran it random
intervals, walked with a 20 pound backpack, ran just the uphills, ran just the
downhills, or ran just the flat portions. I even did a time trial walk last
year which I wrote about here: http://aboutlifeandrunning.blogspot.com/2013/07/signal-hill-time-trial-walk.html.
But I never ever ran the whole course until
last Saturday, April 12th.
I don't know what got into me. At the spur of the moment I decided to try
to run the whole 6 mile course that we normally walk. It must have been all the
sitting around and eating all week that made me feel the need to do this. The
conservative plan was to run at least the first 30 minutes regardless of what
part of the course it might take me, then walk the rest of the way. Except 30
minutes turned into 35, which in turn got extended until I finally decided to just
keep on going since I was getting close to the finish anyway. My guesstimates
on how many minutes it would take me to climb the hills were pretty spot on,
and the downhills and the flats were run at pretty much the same pace as the
uphills since I can't really stretch out my stride anymore without injuring
myself. Familiarity with the course helped a lot in the pacing. There were 6
major climbs on the course.
I knew the course to be exactly 6 miles based on using my GPS watch
several times in the past, but which I did not bring last Saturday.
Nevertheless, when I finally clicked off my chronograph at the finish, I was
surprised to see that it took me exactly 1 hour and 12 minutes which meant 12
minutes per mile. Not bad for a hilly course from an occasional runner. I knew
for sure that I would pay for it the next day in the form of delayed onset
muscle soreness (D.O.M.S.), but as I write this about 30 hours later, it hasn't
happened. Perhaps because the pace was too slow and I wasn't bounding downhills
which creates most of the muscle damage. Better still is that my bad ankles
survived it.
On that day when I was invited to a church to celebrate the 40th day
memorial for a relative who passed away too soon, I dedicated this impromptu
run since I wasn't able to make it to the 8 a.m. mass.
Other notes about walking at Signal Hill: A few weeks ago I went to
Kmart to look at the 20 pound weight vest they were selling. It was too wide and
thus too loose for my torso. I also felt that the small sand bags had the
potential to be torn open down the line due to stress fatigue or perhaps
continuous rubbing against the pockets they were inserted in. So, I finally
placed the sand I bought from Home Depot weeks ago inside plastic bags
reinforced with duct tape, and placed it in my backpack to substitute the 20
pound weight plate I usually carried in it. I walked with the group and felt
slower than usual, so when I got home, I weighed the backpack on a bathroom
scale and saw that it was 24 pounds. I felt every extra ounce of those 4 pounds
while walking up and down Signal Hill. If that wasn't bad enough, the following
week, while putting the backpack in the trunk of my car, I pinched a nerve on
the right side of my trapezius muscle, which radiated down my chest. If it
wasn't on the right side and didn't feel muscular, I would have thought I was
having a heart attack because of the radiating pain. I may have to switch back
to the weight plates and be more careful when I mount the backpack on my back
next time.
Feeling thankful for being able to run a hilly 6 miles :-)
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