In it for the long run

I want to be able to fly . . . like you

First, a short summary of my week's running (since last post)

Sunday (8/8): 75 minutes--felt good; weather was cool, breezy, clear; a sub-10 mpm pace felt comfortable. Took a "carboom" gel before the run, and began thinking wild thoughts about sub-4 hour marathons...note to self: what DOES this gel have in it!

But heard later in the day that my boyfriend's father passed away. His 100th birthday would have been on Aug.
13.

Monday: 60 minutes—weather had heated up, foot was bothering me…took it very slow, walked some, ran some. Felt better after a half hour, but stayed cautious. From Sunday to Monday... what a difference. Alternately heated/iced/stretched/massaged foot, and wondered if it would be okay for Tuesday. It was!

Tuesday: Group speed workout: ladder consisting of 200, 400, 600, 800, 400; mile warm-up, mile cooldown: times were 49, 1:50, 2:59, 4:11, 3:07, 2:00. The first couple surprised me because I didn’t think I’d done them that fast. In a track meet several weeks earlier, I ran a quarter in about the same time, and it took all the breath I had..felt like a fish out of water at the end. This time, it was a hard effort, yes, but I felt I had something left! No problem w/ foot but did feel twinge at the end

Wednesday: 62 mins. easy; no problem with foot

Thursday, 10:30 warm-up, 8x2 mins. hard, abt. 1 min. rest, abt. 5 minutes cooldown. Worried a little about foot but heated/ massaged/stretched it, and it was fine.

***

"Excuse me . . . how do you run like that?"

The woman approached me yesterday after I'd finished the last repeat of my workout, the one I almost decided not to do.

Neil would be picking me up at 10:30, and we'd be going to his father's funeral. I didn't think there would be enough time to do the workout justice, and I wondered if I should do something that would distract me from being ready when Neil came. I like a nice cushion of time before and after hard workouts.

But the itch to run would not go a way, so I chose a less structured form of two-minute repeats--not quarters on the 400m track as in the previous such workout, but a mixture of repeats on the road and on the fifth-mile middle-school track (so I wouldn't be comparing times or worrying about pace). Since time was limited, I decided on a one-minute rest between repeats instead of two as before.

On the track with me were two men, one walking/running, the other running a steady clip--I keyed off him and discovered that his pace looked easier than it was for me-- and the aforementioned woman. As I shot past the woman and the slower of the two men, I wondered if they'd judge me as a show-off. But I hoped that they'd find me harmless enough, just another fanatic doing her workout. As I turned out one repeat after another, I noticed that I covered a little more of the track with each one--but I couldn't catch the faster runner, and I couldn't imagine anyone could see me as exactly gifted in the sport. It didn't matter either way. I was just grateful to be able to do the workout without a twinge. I practiced one of the pylo drills that Dave taught--stepping on and off a small curb until I noticed a slight twinge in the right foot (the one without the injury history), and decided I'd better back off that particular drill, try another--when the woman stopped to talk.

She told me that she'd started to walk in order to lose weight and had also recently stopped smoking. She was walking twelve laps of the track daily and told me that she envied the runners who "could fly around the track like you do and make it look so easy. How do you do it?" I suggested Glover's book for beginning runners and the "couch to 5k" program on the Coolrunning web site. When she asked about shoes, I recommended a couple of area running stores. She resolved to visit one of the stores, check out the web site. Her enthusiasm and eagerness to get started inspired me. Her self-putdowns made me sad, especially since, as I reminded her, when she told me about her background and achievements, she had so much to offer.

She was obviously ready for a new direction in her life, but also afraid. "Am I too heavy to run?" she asked me. I told her that heavier people than she had started to run and successfully lost weight. She had been afraid to approach me at first, she told me, because what if I blew her off? Her courage moved me. I assured her that most runners are eager to help newcomers to the sport, and not to be afraid to ask--and even if she met someone unfriendly, not to let it worry her. There would be plenty of others who'd encourage and support her efforts.

We exchanged names and I gave her my phone number before we parted. Whether she follows up on my suggestions, I felt I'd been given a gift by being reminded of what a gift running was, by being given the opportunity to share something I enjoyed and valued, and, yes, by being unknown to myself at first, admired. Sometimes I take my strengths so much for granted, seeing only my weaknesses, that like the woman I met, I forget about what I have to offer, sometimes simply by doing what I love.

posted by DPMcManus @ 6:06 PM