Some days, my normal four-miler from Creekwood just rolls out of my legs like I was born for it, easy and quick and light. My feet fit snugly into my shoes, my stride is natural, my posture is good and I finish feeling rejuvenated. Today was not one of those days. On the upswing, convinced Adriaan to run the Secret City half with me, so it looks like I am pretty much in for that. Here's hoping I'm actually capable of finishing; I imagine so but one ought not take those things for granted. I'll be ref'ing this weekend so I don't have time for a proper long run. Yesterday's run was the longest I've done on such a small track in a long time (it's a standard quarter mile track at the middle school). It was also completely dark by the time I got there at seven, so the first couple laps I almost felt like I was running blind-- sort of a nice feeling, actually. It reminded me of very early in 2008 when a bad breakup had caused me to begin running incessantly on the raised track in our college gym-- it took twenty laps to make a mile, and I'd run 4-6 nearly every day. That must be what the Recover From the Holidays 50k is like-- they run a 3-mile there-and-back ten times (plus an extra mile to finish it off). It sounds absolutely miserable. I'm getting a little worried about speed, realizing that I've been running regularly for years but probably haven't done speed training since high school. I think I'll wait til December to get serious about that though, since I don't want to push it until I've got the Secret City Half and the Chattanooga trail run out of the way. Plus, with soccer playing/refereeing/coaching still pummeling me from all sides, I'm getting decent speedwork from the sprints involved in playing forward. Trail mix is the weirdest effing food. I still can't decide whether I love or hate it. I think I'll have to compile a list of foods I can and can't eat for running. Peanuts are not so good, so I'll have to give them up this winter. Oh well. Eating a lot more sweet potatoes lately, I think they are up there with oatmeal in my "fave running foods." Along with blackberry herbal tea-- tough to explain, but I feel like it helps.
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