PR

There's a seven-mile trail run that I do pretty frequently. It's one heck of a thing, tons of hills and more water crossings than I care to count. My kind of thing.

It usually takes me about two hours (on the road I keep about an 8:30 pace for anything over 5 miles)....yeah, that's a huge pace difference.

Today I finished it in an hour and twenty minutes. 7 miles, on a really rugged trail with what some people call "highly technical running"*, and I kept about an 11 minute pace. Hooray for me!

I often think of distance running as an analogy for things in my life....usually childbirth, but lots of other things crop up. Today it was marriage. Hills are rough. Lots of times they change your running technique/stride/breathing. And it's easy to want to quit. But if instead of sitting down and crying (like I wanted to at multiple points today) you keep going, push yourself to overcome the difficult things, you'll end up stronger on the other side. And there's no use ignoring the hill. It isn't going to go away, and if you want to get home, you have to go up it. So face it, beat it into submission, make yourself keep going. It will get better....usually lead to some easy running on a level patch or a breezy downhill.

* My definition of "highly technical running" is looking at a root-strewn, washed out trail as I'm careening down it, trying to do a forward-and-back sweep of it and place my feet as best as possible, letting my speed gather as fast as I dare while avoiding breaking my neck. I don't have much technique other than to try really really hard not to fall down. :-)

Hill training....

.....with Miranda Lambert and the Beatles. It doesn't get any better than that.

There's a 375-meter hill in my neighborhood. Anybody who knew the younger version of myself is aware of my running up and down Y mountain, and doing multiple reps of all 13 (well 26 if you take into account that they're broken into two for each floor, 27 if you go up to the roof) flights of stairs in the SWKT. Needless to say, when I found this unexpected hill, I was really excited.

I've been working up the distance I can take in my barefoot shoes...I'm up to 6 miles, but it makes my feet sore to go that far. I have less pain everywhere else (ankles, knees, hips, even shoulders), but my foot muscles are still not very strong, it seems. Last night I ran reps on the hill in them. Holy wow.

When I do hill training, I run from home to wherever the hill is, then pace how long it takes me to run continuously up the hill immediately after that. Then I try to speed up every repetition of the hill. Yesterday I went consistently down from 2 minutes and 15 seconds, to 1 minute and 50 seconds over six times up the hill. I was really pleased with the 1:50.

It's been a long time since I ran like that, where I was really pushing my body trying to make it work as efficiently as possible, focusing on my breathing and stride and the way my muscles were moving....and I remembered again what it is that makes me love running. When you feel that perfect combination of how God made your body to work, everything so smooth and fluid even though it hurts like crazy....it's just amazing to think of how He did it. A perfect balance, capable of continuous improvement....and then He gave us the senses to recognize it, the remarkable sensory experience of it.

In my highly un-academic opinion, it's just cool.

Switching places

Me: I wish I could go to the grocery while you stayed home to "dissertate."

Ben: I could dissertate for you!

Me: At this point you could probably do as well as I can, starting off...

Ben: "Once upon a time, they didn't have computers. So they made plays."



I'm staying home to dissertate. :-)