I knew I would pay for being lazy this morning. I had the opportunity to get up at 8:00 and bang out the run. Nope. I blame Fredrico Fellini and a very nice bottle of Bordeaux. [BTW – I find it impossible to watch an Italian film without drinking wine.] I cannot remember the last time I had wine, but it being Christmas … I was justified. Both the film (Le notti di Cabiria) and the wine were terrific. [BTW Part 2: One of my selfish New Year’s resolutions will include watching every Fellini film in 2010.] The point is that I had even less incentive to pop out of bed and get with the program. I knew rain showers were on the horizon, but frankly, I didn’t care. I’ve run in the rain many times before (my 10K PR occurred in the rain), so I would deal with it.
The only hiccup to this program was that I would have liked to get some real distance it today. It didn’t really happen, but the run itself was exactly what I wanted to accomplish. To be clear, I never stated here or on RWOL my goal distance would be today. I wanted an LR. By my own definition (13.1+) it didn’t happen, but had a high quality run, despite crappy weather (rain, wind, bleh). Why? Today’s soundtrack:
You talk about keeping a relaxed, even cadence. I felt like I was skating. My route was the Outer Loop, but I wanted to get a bit more hill work. Therefore, I hit the North Woods/Harlem Hill twice before continuing down the West Side the park. Other than being soaked, I felt great … completely at ease. Once I hit the base of the park I did another double loop around the south portion before scaling Cat Hill and running home. In all 10.55 miles at 8:35. Why not more distance? I’m trying to conserve a little energy for tomorrow for intervals. We’ll see how it goes.
This switch up in music is doing something for me. I am much more relaxed during and even after the run. If I do the purist/no headphones thing, my mind never shuts down and I over think everything. If I go with my traditional running playlist … Michael Jackson, The Clash, Notorious B.I.G., Wu Tang, Jay-Z, Guns ‘N Roses and House Music … I get bored since I know the lyrics, beats, etc. backwards and forwards. Unlike the pop/hip-hop/rock, I still accumulate jazz CDs so the boredom thing is less likely to occur. So maybe I’ve found something that works with jazz.
A shout out to Marathon Maiden, who is in the midst of two impressive streaks: at least 4-5 weeks straight of running everyday and even more impressive, double digit runs everyday for around 3 weeks. She is an amazing runner! Keep it rolling!