Still no race on the calendar, but that hasn’t stopped me from hitting the pavement. I’ve been getting out there 3 – 4 2-3 times a week, bright- dark-and-early (stupid Spring Forward). I’ve been heading out on my regular 7.68 mile (yes, exactly 7.68, so says my GPS) route most mornings and take on the rest of the day per usual. However, something comes over me on the weekends that is both awesome and unrecommended. “What can be both awesome and unrecommended?” you ask. Drugs! Grand Theft! Unprotected Chess! Country Music!* Teletubbies! I’ll give you a moment to get all the inappropriate comments out of your system.
Anyway, the awesome / unrecommended item I am referring to is, on the weekends, I seem to run like people are chasing me. What I mean is, I run nearly as fast as I can for as long as I can. Case in point, this last weekend, for no reason, I started off a little too quick (8:00 min/mile) and only got faster. Why? Because it is awesome. I even sought revenge upon my archetypal (GRE word) nemesis whom you may remember from my Power Suit post, and flew by a girl in a 2009 Boston Marathon shirt. (Ev pointed out she was probably 2/3 of the way through a 22-mile run, but I still passed her!) Makes me feel like I’m racing every week, in which case I am the winner! (and loser, I suppose). “It’s not recommended to run so hard too often. You should slow down”. Yea, that’s what you say if you’re a Teletubby you hate fun.
Perhaps it’s because I’m awake for a few hours instead of a few minutes before running, or just the change to warmer weather (thank you again, Global Warming, for raising Earth’s temperature so quickly**). So for now, I’ll take pleasure in these long, fast runs, and continue to challenge myself as if I’m racing each weekend. Rationality be damned! I will not slow down!
Last Saturday’s Run
| Distance: | 12.34 miles |
| Time: | 1:36:57 |
| Pace: | 7:51 min/mile |
| Average HR: | 161 bpm |
*Country music is neither awesome nor recommended.
**Some uninformed types might call this “the seasons changing from Winter to Spring”. Ahh, ignorance, such a beautiful thing. Suck it, Al Gore***.
***Thank you for inventing the Internet.
Country music is both awesome and recommended!
Your comment is neither awesome nor recommended.
I can’t believe that someone beat me to that comment
🙂 Yay!! You may beat me in a race, but I will win with stalking Mike’s blog
You can both go back to the South where they tolerate country music.
I hate to be pedantic, but archetypal is unquestionably not a GRE word, or at least not on Kaplan’s list of the 501 most common ones. I know only because I’ve been studying them.
Here’s a GRE word for you: Fun Sponge. As in “Will is a fun sponge, because he sucks the fun out of everything.” It’s also from Old English for “shut up”.
Mike, dude, this is an awesome post. Running as fast as you can for as long as you can is the only real way to run. Dare I say, it’s the way REAL MEN run. Plus it’s a hell of a lot more enjoyable than running slow. Well done sir, well done.