Presents opened. Kids happy. Successful Christmas. Well, almost successful. I needed to bang out the run. Ha! You know when you are a long distance runner when you voluntarily wake up an hour before your kids on Christmas morning. At 7:00 am I was wondering where they were until the youngest bopped on in. Anyway, we survived and the living room is a messy between toys, boxes, etc. What was my present you may be wondering? It was the serenity of a nice run in the park.
I was practically skipping out of the door at 11:30 am. Sun was up (well, it was overcast, but it you get the idea), I was fully awake and had downed my cappuccino. I couldn’t ask for better weather conditions … 29* wind chill / 37* ambient temp. I decided to switch up my music selection from the standard running stuff to take advantage of my ridiculous jazz collection. Jazz and running may not sound like sensible combo, but they are really a great pairing. Jazz is largely free flowing with a constant tempo underlying the various improvisations/solos. I’m not sure why I have not made the connection until now. After today, I may never listen to anything other than jazz while running. Today’s running soundtrack: Horace Silver.
I ran to the park and decided to attempt the snow/ice-covered Reservoir Path as a warm up. You’re probably thinking that for a guy with a nagging groin strain, running on snow/ice is not the best strategy. You may be right, but there was method to the madness. I am focusing on relaxing and being more efficient (less physical stress to get similar results). Running on that surface instantly slows you down by taking it one steady step at a time (otherwise you bust your tail). From that perspective, the strategy worked. I maintained an easy cadence and didn’t fall.
Next up was the Outer Loop to get some distance and then running back home. Same story. I wanted to get as effortless as possible. Let the tension go and just run. It worked! I wasn’t in a zone, but just kind of enjoying the scene and experience. I would have been very happy with an 8:50-9:00 pace. To my surprise, 8.12 miles at 8:12. The pace really didn’t matter. No hard breathing. No straining. No churning. Just easy running.
BTW – I have started thinking about the Year in Review blog post. Trying to capture an entire year of running in one reasonably sized post will be interesting, but should be fun to reflect on changes, growth and goals.
Merry Christmas!