Now I've Gone and Did It

Well. I'm officially registered for the Go! St. Louis Marathon. I'm excited. Its exciting. I'm really, really, pumped and excited.

Okay, I'm terrified. Petrified. Holy sh!t, I've gone and did it. I'm in for an a$$ whoopin' for sure. I'm seriously going to attempt to run a distance that up and killed the first guy who tried it. Very frickin' smart.

Oh well. No going back now. I can always switch to the half if my training proves grossly inadequate. I've got a feeling though. Under the terror. Its a good one. The beast is growling - in a happy way. She wants to come out and play.

She's been a happy beastie the last couple of weeks. My runs up to now have been the slow, plodding, base building variety. Not enough to bring Phoenix out of hibernation. She might have opened an eye to look around, groggily mumbling, "Whaa.... we running? mmmm, no. Not really. Night." She made one appearance during a pitiful little 5k I ran a month or so ago. I was pushing it as hard as I could on the last mile and sure I couldn't hold on. In my mind, I searched for the beast... "You there, beastie?" "yeah. i'm here." "I don't think I can do this. I'm too out of shape. I'm going to slow down." "no. hold on. you can do this. look, you're almost there." "Okay." .... "You still there?" "i'm here. hold on." "Okay". On and on for a mile. It sucked to be moving so slow and huffing and puffing like I was hauling it. But I did hang on. So it was good.

Last Sunday though, my long run. That rocked. I went to Phoenix's old hunting ground to do an hour. As soon as I found myself on that trail, I had to start pulling on the bit to keep myself from taking off. After ten minutes warm up, I let it loose - trying to keep my heart rate in a somewhat reasonable range - and, friends, it felt fine. Not fine as in "no, really, I'm fine" but fine as in "that dude is FINE". It was FINE. I actually felt like I was moving. My legs had that old sproingy feeling. Beastie was out and awake and loving it. Every turn and hill of the trail felt like home.

It used to take me 45 min. to complete a loop of the trail at my long run pace. I figured it would take me at least the whole hour to get through it this time. I made it in 50 min. So, five min. slower - but, seriously, that's not bad for two years away. As I rounded the turn for the last mile, my legs were getting that "long run" feeling and I knew I'd be stopping for ice on the way home. Ice baths in winter suck. But it helped, so what am I complaining for.

My Tues. tempo run was more of the same, Beastie growling happily, me feeling like my old self. Its good to be on the way back.

Next post: Running for Water. Stay tuned.