THURSDAY
This was scheduled to be an easy night, only 12 miles. A mere short jaunt, a stroll in the park, nothing more than a protracted warm-up in comparison. Yeah right. Actually it went quite well, but we are tired. Interestingly enough more head tired than body tired. The legs are doing fine; no aches, pains or tightness to indicate that something is taking more of a beating than it can handle. Eve and I chatted through the evening run about work, training and body responses. It was evident that our humor is taking a hit this week. While on the outside we appear patient and serene, on the inside we are not in the mood for any bs from anyone. We wrapped up the run with 10 x 50/50 in and out surges which felt awkward at first but by the third rep, there was considerable more flow in the effort and left us afterwards feeling refreshed
FRIDAY
We both had the day off from work which helped mentally both from the aspect of having “a mental break” from work and being able to run during daylight. The sun really felt good with the cool morning air. This is to be one of our longer days, scheduled for 15 miles, but because of the choice of the short Sun City course became more like 16+ miles. The Sun City loop is not easy, lots of hills and very little flat. It is varied and we run through several neighborhoods which really breaks the run up mentally. The Sun City loop has three variations of length, the shortest of which we will run today and the longest, about 23 miles, we will run on Sunday. We hit the road at 9:30 and start slowly; very slowly. With several other runners out on the road we have to restrain ourselves at times when the mental cursor keeps trying to hit the competitive icon. The first 20 - 30 minutes are not particularly pleasant ,but we keep at knowing it will get better once we get warmed up and get a couple of climbs behind us. The mental check list rolls; posture, lean, lift, keep the ankles loose and limp, roll down the road, don’t bounce and cadence, cadence, cadence. The body scan continues laced with the latest topic of conversation: kitchen equipment for a pending kitchen remodel. We stop at parks along the way for water, chug Hammer gel at regular intervals and the miles roll by. By runs end, we are tired but not famished like Wednesday evening. We wrap it up with a 6 minute segment at a good fast comfortable pace followed by a short cool down and we are home. A shower, some stretching, then off to the physical therapist for a relaxing message. This has got to be a great day. And when we fully recover I know we will appreciate it more than we do now.
The parks and water stops all have names; Fallen Leaf, Ridge Brook (try to find a brook in Las Vegas), North Tower and then some names we have come up on our own like: Elvis Slept Here Park, Grumpy Old Farts Park (which is actually a golf course), This Is a Joke, Right? Park.
...Got so tired, I never finished this journal...
