It’s cold outside. It’s supposed to be snowing all day, but so far it’s just a cold rain. I debated heavily if I should run today or not, but in the end I realized I had to run.

As I rounded the corner by the church at about the 2 mile marker, I realized that I hadn’t walked at all. I’m not sure, but I think that’s a record for me. I ran a little ways up the hill, to about the Van Halen logo etched in the sidewalk, then walked up and around the corner. I had caught my breath by then, and it was easy to run the rest the way home.

32:33

I really felt great today. Sure, I let myself walk a little when my breathing wasn’t keeping up, but my legs never felt tired or sore. Even after coming home and stretching a bit I still don’t feel any ill effects. I’m really starting to enjoy this.

It was nice outside this morning, but it looked like a storm was coming. I had a meeting scheduled for 11:15, but I figured it would be over by lunch, which is when I usually head out. But then I got a phone call from the piano tuner. He was scheduled to be here at 12:15. Of course, he didn’t actually get here until almost 12:30. And the storm clouds were dark and menacing. But I decided to run anyway, because that’s what you do.

Most of the first mile was pretty rough. I switched from my 3/4 to my 2/3 pattern for breathing sooner than normal. That made me wonder if I was sick, or didn’t sleep well last night. As I headed up the hill to the round-about, my feet felt really heavy. It seemed this run would be even worse than Tuesday’s run, which was fairly upsetting, since I took a full day off from everything yesterday. I really wanted to switch to walking at the top of that hill, but I didn’t. As I ran towards the park in the center of The Cedars, I kept thinking that if I pushed too hard at first that the rest of the run would be even worse… shuffling. I kept pushing those thoughts out, but I did finally start walking about half way around the park. And then something amazing happened. I caught my breath pretty quickly. I started running again before I reached the road out to Canyon. I ran all the way and felt really good. I was focusing on leading with my knees and letting my feet kick up behind me. It worked.

The next thing I knew, I was back to the park, back to the round-about, and heading down to the church. I rounded that corner and headed up the next hill. It was a struggle to keep my breathing on rhythm, and I switched to walking again where someone carved the Van Halen logo into the sidewalk. It’s not far from there to the corner and I started running again half way up that hill. I didn’t stop again until I was home. That last mile really felt good. A few times I even thought I may need to start adding more distance to my run, but I wasn’t that crazy today.

The storm never came. I stayed ahead of it and set my new personal record for the loop. 33:25.

Clearly I haven’t progressed to the point where I fully recover by the next day. Yesterday was my best run so far this year, but today I was back to walking more than I would like. On the other hand, I did walk a mile or two last night and then I rode my bike trainer for an hour. Maybe that is playing into it. Bottom line, I stopped running and started walking before I even got to the 1 mile mark today. I ended up walking at least 5 minutes of the loop. Charmaine met up with me at about the 2 mile mark and we ran the last mile together. When we got home, the timer said 35:55, so it was still a decent outing.

I’ll take tomorrow off from running, so hopefully the run on Thursday will be another good one.