As I go into my second month of this project I am reminded of how much I've learned through the years of running that I've done and how much I still have yet to understand.
Up until this Wednesday I was feeling fairly good with regards to my training. Due to some upcoming social commitments this Saturday I switched my ten mile long run to Wednesday. It was a perfect day! The weather was unseasonably warm with temperatures in the sixties. Very rare for upstate NY this time of year. So the opportunity seemed ideal to fit some miles in and free up my time on Saturday.
The run was good. Not great. The temperature dipped twenty degrees by the end of the run and it caused me to stiffen up a little. But I had brought along a windbreaker. So it wasn't that bad. Even managed to catch up on some podcasts. That night the weather changed back to winter with high winds blowing everything everywhere and bitter cold temperatures returning. My old beagle didn't like the noise outside one bit! So he howled practically all night long. As a result I didn't get much sleep. When the beagle's not happy, he doesn't think anyone else should be either.
Thursday morning came and I knew immediately it was going to be a long day. I felt terrible. I ached everywhere and it was all I could do to keep my eyes open at work. I managed to survive and even managed to somehow waddle through a six miler at the gym on the treadmill. Got home, ate dinner and I think I passed out around 8:30 PM. As I was drifting off I pondered whether I could run this many days in a row. Not a very positive day to say the least!
Today was completely different! I woke up feeling rested, rejuvenated and had a much better outlook on life in general. Work was good. On my way to the gym I was thrilled to discover that someone is actually reading this blog and was kind enough to leave some thoughts. My workout today was 45 minutes of cross-training with weights, an easy three mile run and 15 minutes of yoga. I felt strong and even managed to increase the weight on some of the cross-training exercises.
As I think back to last summer. The amazing summer that I trained harder and smarter than I had ever before. The summer when I broke the four hour threshold in the marathon. I am reminded of how hard it really was and how exhausted I was at times.
Maybe the magic that I found during my tenth marathon last year wasn't magic at all. Just the result of good effort during my training. Maybe the magic formula is really just as simple as: breakdown, rebuild and repeat. One month down. 32 days of running in a row.
Run for your life my friends. Get up and do something. You can do it. I go on and the project continues...
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