Running In Place

And if you want to be free, be free
‘Cause there’s a million things to be
You know that there are
~ Cat Stevens

Today was a planned 4 miles - my longest run to date - and another step toward my 5 miler two weeks from today. As we had gotten what seemed like TONS of snow over the past week I figured I would not even bother with any of the trails, which are not groomed by anything other than foot prints and snowmobiles. The prospect of running around the nearby village was also not appealing as it is very small and I would find myself running up and down and around the same 5 streets to get 4 miles in. Unfortunately, the roads coming and going from town are very cambered (sp?), so I have to stay on the neighborhood streets. This is the same reason I don’t just walk out my own front door and run down my road. Anyway, I figured I’d try something new and drive into the city (those of you who live in cities with populations greater than 34,000 please stop snickering at my use of the word city)

I parked in the parking lot of my old high school and was sitting in the car and getting all balled up because, you know, for me, new= way scary. And Cat Stevens kindly and providentially sang me the above song as I sat there. And I said “well shit” and got out of the car and started my run.

And here comes the part where I say how great it was — and it flippin’ was!! This being my longest run thus far, I was not aiming for speed (HA!), but I was aiming for consistency. I tend to run too fast, then slow, then too fast, etc etc and by the end of the run I’m all spent. I wanted to run 4 miles - not run 2.5 and struggle for 1.5. Yes yes, so I ran a 1/2 mile warm up and then walked a block before starting off, I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go but the area was all quiet neighborhoods and not too busy streets so I just ran around, got lost for a little while, then got my bearings, and when all was said and done, got back to my car at right about 4 miles. I think I really played this run well - I did end up staying very consistent in my pace (more on that in a minute), and I really tolerated the distance with what I thought was just the right amount of effort - not incredibly easy but not killer hard. I think my tendency has been to over exert myself consistently and think that it would force me to eventually get betterfasterstronger but I am reading more and more that uncovers my faulty logic.

So here’s the best part: I have thought before that I have a tendency to shuffle when I run, and looking at some pictures from my recent 5k kind of made it appear that this was the case. I saw not alot of knee bending or feet too far off the ground. Now this race was on snowy, slick roads and I may have mentioned that there was a hill or two but I don’t think I was accomodating the conditions so much as affecting my usual form. Today I really really paid attention to standing up straighter, bending my knees more, and kicking my feet up more. During the warm up I thought “this is hard!” but during the rest of the time it actually seemed to make the running easier! And look at how consistent my pace was, which I attribute to this because it seemed to help me fall into a very good rhythm:
mile 1 - 11:14
mile 2 - 11:21
mile 3 - 11:36
mile 4 - 11:31
It usually looks like this:
mile 1 - 11:58
mile 2 - 9:30
mile 3 - dying

Back at the car, I did some stretching and thanked my body for being so awesome, and thanked my mind for always learning new things, and thanked Cat Stevens for kicking me out of the car and giving me a song to sing in my head.