Sunday, October 20, 2013

Long Run. Two Hours and Forty-Minutes. Boise Green Belt.

 The distance is now becoming more than is natural for my body to go.  In total, I ran a little over sixteen Miles on this run and the first eight was a romantic wandering through the all the beauty that this crisp, colorful Autumn has to offer.  I set out latter in the afternoon and followed a popular dirt path along the river that was canopied by turning leaves of amber, red, and gold. There were dogs and lovers (both young and old) I saw old friends in green waders, fly poles crossed over their shoulders, taking a break from the serene river and the fish to catch up on their weekly affairs.  Life seems to continue on pace regardless of time.  These old man concerned with the mundane, needing to share the unexceptional, just like me at ten, twenty, and thirty.  We all just want to know that the things we do that do not matter (least of all to the greater cosmos), can hold captive a friend so be we return the friendly ear.  There were fathers with sons teaching them the principles of buoyancy, the importance of movement and the skill of disregarding time.  This is what the Autumn has to offer.  A place to step out of time.  We learn here that it is okay to not take ourselves so desperately seriously.  How could we, coming from the summer where all things peak and the best we have to offer seems to sever ourselves from this earth.  Now we see the haughty
fall.  We see the crowned greens shrivel with dehydration and give all it's glory to a dying gasp of light.  But, it doesn't leave us nothing.  It leaves us a subtle warmth on our skin, it gives us the colors of bounty, the remembrance of harvest.  It whispers as a friend that winter is coming and all those gourds need be stored and the wood staked and that soon these colors will be only memories once even the rivers feel too cold to freeze.  But, for now, I don't need to focus on those things.  I Just need to run, to take in this precious place.  To internalize all the love that abounds.  With these things behind me I can continue to run.  To run through the muscle pains and and the tweaked knees.  To push past the hardened achilles and the bruised tarsals. Kinetics are the key to happiness.





















Saturday, October 12, 2013

Pre-Race Run. Thirty Minutes. West Kootenai St.

Tomorrow is the City of Trees Half Marathon.  I'm feeling quite apprehensive about the event today.  I worry about my pace and my health.  I worry that I won't run as fast this year as I did last year.  I worry that my knees will shift laterally and my stability will fail and each mile will be worse than the one before.  But that all being said, I know I've done the work.  I've trained intelligently.  I've already completed three half marathons in the past three weeks.  I know my limits of pain and pace and know that regardless of time, tomorrow I will have fun.

I've tapered my miles this week and my body is thankful for it.  I felt stronger on my short run today than I have in weeks.  I've also been eating pretty smart too.   Less candy and crap and more complex carbohydrates.  A few nights ago I baked five pounds of sweet potato souffle and have been joylessly plugging away at it. My glycogen is up, my muscles recovered.  Despite my pre-race anxieties, I really ought to run pretty well.


And now some Arts:



It's nice to know that I'm not the only thing changing. The sky wanted to keep his arboreal friends naive and believing the days of regimented watering cycles were the best they'd ever see.   But, who could stand and contradict the delight of diversity.  Sure, laws of man and nature state that we all must move at a contestant rate.  Here, twenty-five is the law.  Later we learn of Einstein's short sightedness and that when approaching the theoretical limits, great burst of autumn's reds give fuel to the consuming pyre.

Monday, October 7, 2013

Tempo Run. One Hour. Boise Greenbelt.

I lost a week among the hustle.  It's not that I haven't run.  I have.  I've even taken some photos and edited them as well.  But nothing has stuck and the light was never very fair. Drab fall photos forced between shifts at work.  Training has been going well though.  My recent long run was just under sixteen miles and it took me two hours and twenty minutes to complete it. That's a pretty dainty pace, but the sun was warmer than i had thought, I had less water than i needed and far to few calories to keep my strength high. My next long run will have to be altered.  I'll need to drop food at some point.  Take a break and ingest some tortillas or a ball of quinoa.  My overall  pace is improving as well.  I've been pushing myself to hold faster paces for long distances.  I've gone to the parks and done some Fartlek training--run, sprint, walk, repeat.  These days are some of the hardest, but they do so much for lung and leg strength that the pain is clearly worth the effort.

Today I ran seven miles in an hour break between my shifts at work.  This is why i don't have photos.  I've been working these twelve hour days for a few weeks now and running on my breaks has really been a delightful break.  It boosts my energy, gives me a lapse from the normal daily routine, and is a productive way to blow off any stress associated with the job.  The first half of my run was conservative.  I paced along at nine minute mile feeling my body's pains, noting where the evenings stretches would have to focus.  At the half way point I turned about and pushed the run as fast as I could.  At peaks in pace I was running sub seven minute miles (really very fast for me), and my average pace on the way home was a seven twenty mile. 

So, training advances.  This Sunday I will be running the City of Trees Half Marathon.  I'm feeling pretty stoked on the event and expect to run the event quickly.  My official PR for a Half Marathon is one hour and forty seven minutes.  I'm sure I'll destroy it this Sunday.