Saturday, May 14, 2011

The Run Around

7 AM on Saturday:  Getting ready to run.
The feet weren't happy about it either.
I love to sleep.  I look forward to the weekends when I can sleep late, or wake up early just to go back to sleep, or take sleep breaks throughout the day (nap, anyone?)  My weekends are virtual rest-fests.  Work a lot during the week, rest a lot during the weekends.  That’s the way I like it. 
So, what the heck was I doing awake at 7 AM on a Saturday morning standing in the parking lot of the local community college?  Oh geez, I was getting ready to run.  Voluntarily.  Like, it was a choice…and I chose to be there.  Who slipped something in my Kool-aid?! 
My running club is offering “dry runs” on our graduation course for the next several Saturdays.  (Did I mention that they’re at 7 freaking AM in the morning?)  Since I know I need to run slightly more often than once a week to even have a shot at completing the 5K, I figured I should go out for the extra run.  So, at 6:25 this morning, I forced myself out of bed, donned my running gear, stopped at the local Weis for some bottled water, and headed off to our designated meeting spot.  The sky was gray and it was a little misty.  I prayed for thunder and lightening the whole way there.  Unfortunately, the weather gods ignored me.  Dumb weather gods.    
We split up into two groups.  The Runners (all pretty much from that mythical Run Group A) ran the entire course while the Runwalkers (that’s me!) ran a “modified course” – that’s code for a mile-long (??) straight, level street between two major roads.*  It was a quiet street that ran through a lovely residential neighborhood with nice houses.  Houses occupied by people who were probably doing what I wanted to be doing at that hour in the morning – sleeping. 
After our stretches, we started running.  Technically, our “homework” was to run six minutes, walk two; but many of us ran the entire way.  Which was great and all except for the teensy little fact that I forgot:  once you got to the end of the street, you had to run back.  About halfway back, I totally lost all my steam and this Runwalker became an out and out Walker (but I didn’t need a walker…so that’s a positive!)
I was totally fine with walking.  Until the Runners suddenly appeared out of nowhere and lapped us.  The Runners were like a finely tuned machine; a pack of Females in Training running in perfect harmony (I kid you not, they were running in unison…perfectly).  They even made drinking their water (in unison) look graceful.  I decided to suck it up and just go.  I was going to finish as a Runner.  So what if it felt like my lungs were being ripped to shreds, who needs lungs anyway?  I managed to cross the “finish line” without dying, which I think is a great accomplishment.
We’re meeting again next Saturday.  I’ll probably be there. 
But tomorrow?  Tomorrow is Sunday.  And Sunday is the day of rest. 
Guess what I’ll be doing. 
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* - Just got an email from the coach, the modified course was 2.4 miles!  That explains a lot.

2 comments:

  1. Congrats! How did last weekend go?

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  2. I took last weekend off BUT I was out there this morning and had a relatively good run. I seem to hit a wall at the 1.4 mile mark which would seem problematic since a 5K is 3.1 miles!

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