Ten Days

I really did it. Ten consecutive days running and my legs didn’t fall off. There have been a couple of challenges along the way, but I determined to do it and did.

Thursdays are my longest day of the week. I start out the day with a men’s meeting at church at 5:30 a.m. For the record that’s earlier than I even get out of bed the rest of the week. After that I came home, picked up the HS junior and took him to school. Its finals week, so traffic is at it absolute worst. Then it was off to the office to put the finishing touches on a presentation for management on Friday on our big project.

But first we had a ‘state of the business’ address and our general manager announced his retirement. His replacement was announced, a guy from corporate. Our current GM is highly regarded and a man a great integrity, but its probably time for a change. Anyway I find out midway in preparing my presentation that the new GM will be at our meeting tomorrow. No big deal you say, except that our project is about the biggest thing going at the moment and I have the dubious distinction of being the very first presenter. No added stress there. Me, setting the tone and making the first impression for the team, imagine that. I ended up staying till after 6:00 to finalize the thing and then ran an errand for my wife. I got home and normally I would get my run in first before dinner got started. My wife is out of commission at the moment (a little about that later) so it was up to me to get dinner on the table tonight. As an added stressor, the HS dude that lives at the other end of the house won’t start homework until after dinner. So I opted to cook first, its finals week remember and he needs all the study time he can get. Dinner – grilled chicken over pasta with raspberry vinaigrette was on the table and on its way to the stomach just before 8:00 p.m.

I had run nine days so far and figured I still had 4 good hours to get my tenth run in; a 5 miler at an easy pace. I updated the checkbook, read some blogs and then feeling a whole lot like Wes I walked out the door at 9:23 p.m. It was a nice 54°F, a cloudless sky with a half moon in the west. My legs felt surprisingly fresh. I hummed along at a moderate pace along a route I’ve dubbed the Bonnie Cove 5. It is a route I’ve been running quite a bit lately. I needed to come up with a shorter name for my written log rather than listing all the streets on the loop. Bonnie Cove is unique to this loop so the name stuck. I thought it had a better ring to it than Gladstone 5 or Lyman 5. The final time was 42:27 for an 8:29 pace. That’s not too bad I think for 10 day old legs. Tomorrow, Friday, will be a rest day and I am going to enjoy it immensely.

The rest of the week went like this: Monday, Day #7, I did the Bonnie Cove 5 at an easy 9:36 pace as a recovery from Sunday’s speedy long run. Tuesday, Day #8, I reluctantly dragged myself over to the track and did a repeat of last weeks 4 x 400. My times were: 1:43, 1:45, 1:41 and 1:41, in that order. I was shocked (and happy) that I finished the last one faster than the first. It was really hard to stay motivated to do those laps.

Wednesday, Day #9, I was on vacation. My wife was having a procedure done as an outpatient. I needed and wanted to be there with her. We had discussed my run and decided that while she was in recovery would be the best time to get out. So once the doc came to tell me that everything went smoothly I headed over to Bonelli for 6 miles in the sun at 77°. It was so nice to be back there. I hadn’t made it over there since Christmas day, nearly 4 weeks ago. Of course as things work out, we waited forever in the morning before she was called into surgery, the surgery itself took longer than planned but the one thing that went quickly was her recovery. She was awake and alert and wondering just where the heck I was for longer than a person who just came out of surgery wants to wait to see a familiar face. After I got back and apologized another hour went by before she was discharged. I got her back home around 5:00 and she was able to eat a light dinner. She slept most of today but was able to enjoy dinner with us tonight. She’ll be off again tomorrow and hopefully back up to full speed on Monday morning.

Now its late, it has been a long day, so I’m off to bed.