Flexibility

Flexibility, that's one reason I enjoy running so much. If my schedule changes, I can still almost always fit a run in sometime, somewhere. I like that as the rest of my life dictates I can change days, change miles, change workouts but still maintain a level of fitness.

Wednesday I took the day off. Our Friday night bible study was moved since the host family had planned to attend the Valentine's Dinner put on by our church. No big deal, just move Wednesday's mileage to Friday, the day I normally take off.

Thursday, I ran a 6 mile loop around my neighborhood. As I was running, I was thinking that I hadn't run this loop in quite a while. I dug through my 2005 log and found out I hadn't done this since May 16. Flexibility. How often is it that you can run 5 days a week and not run this particular 6 miles loop for 10 months. I've run 6 mile runs since then but somehow not on this particular route. I don't know why, but I find that interesting.

On Friday I had planned to do 5 miles on the Santa Fe Dam. I packed my clothes and took them to work. I was hoping to cut out a little early and get this run in before the sun set. Thursday afternoon a coworker asked me to pick him up at the Mazda dealer a couple miles from home. "Sure, no problem." I hadn't thought it through any farther than that. On the way to work he asked if I could take him back after work? Flexibility. "Sure, no problem." I decided to stop at home after I dropped him off, change and go get my 5 miles in at Bonelli Park. By the time I got to Bonelli it was about 5:30 and the sun was disappearing, and fast. My 5 route there is half on roads and half on trails. Officially, the park closes at dusk. I decided to go for the run anyway. Running on the roads was easy, there were street lights. Running on the trails was a little bit of an adventure, no street lights there. The moon was approaching full but I still had to run on blind trust. It's easy to spook yourself in an empty park by moonlight. At the transition between the road and the trail I came across a flock of mallard ducks. They were content, settled into the lawn until I came ambling by. They all took off into the air. It was quite the sight, about 50 dark flying creatures in the moonlight. Definitely a run I've never duplicated before.

Saturday, my schedule called for a 16 miler in preparation for the 1/2 marathon in 3 weeks. Again flexibility came into play. My wife had made plans for us to attend a matinee performance of Bite! This didn't leave me enough time to complete 16 miles before the show. Unless of course I wanted to get up at 4:00, no thanks. I'll just move the long run to Sunday. Flexibility. I decided to go down to Yorba Linda to run with the Cruisers. I ended up running 10 miles with Jennifer in 1:28, 8:48 pace. The last mile was 8:07.

Now I just have to figure out how many miles I should run tomorrow, 16 or less? Flexible (but not casual).