I worked hard yesterday around the homestead, mowing every inch of the 6 acres and edged the lawn to boot. We had my youngest daughter's birthday party so I promised to make the yard look nice for her so the games, flowered pot-painting-planting contest and mud-pie cake was perfect. Afterward, J's parents came over for a dual birthday/Mother's Day which included barbecue "30" burgers with all the backyard barbecue trimmings - to include J's famous E'Claire cake. We finished the night with two hours of "Farkel" which I managed to win two of three games that were filled with laughter and finger-pointing that suggested I had the game fixed somehow.
To explain my Saturday events is necessary to to understand why I felt so awful during this afternoon's run. I typically run between 10 and 15 miles a week. This, after spending last summer training for the Portland Marathon. The marathon experience was everything I had hoped and included 3 goals: I ran a 3:54:25 (goal was to break 4 hours), I ran every step, and I survived. Throughout last fall, this past winter and now spring, I've managed to maintain some routine of running but the miles seem to come harder and the excuses for not running easier.
Today was different. I was motivated by my daughter H. We went for our first real run last Friday afternoon. She wanted to run with her daddy and this time I said sure....we run around our place a lot, play a lot of basketball, laser tag and games, but I've been a bit careful knowing that our neck of the woods has many drivers who are, well, idiots (last fall, a gal in her early 20's refused to give me an inch of road causing me to dart left as her 50 mph car zipped by).
So, I ran my routine 5.5 mile loop and then H joined me for another two mile run toward the river and back. We ran the first mile, walked about 1/4 mile then ran the rest of the way home. I really enjoy spending the time with H and that she's excited about running and spending time with me as much as I am with her.
I only felt "awful" because of the terrible Saturday evening buffet of burgers, chips, cake, mud-pie....
Attached is a website by a podcaster I've been listening to the past year. His name is Steve "Runner" and he's a 48 year old guy from Oxford, Massachusetts who has a goal of breaking 4 hours in a marathon (he just had a bad experience running the Boston Marathon in about 6 hours). He's entertaining and I've learned a lot from his weekly "Phidipidations" website.
I'll end with his normal podcast closing statement - "Run long, and taper..."
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