Nearing Slugness

I said I was going to take some time to rest up after my less than stellar performance at Duke City and I guess I took myself seriously. The day after the marathon I found myself in Kansas City, Kansas for three days. I took the time to rest even though I normally would have taken advantage of the opportunity to run in a new unknown locale. I was home for one day, Thursday, of that week and then I was off to Las Vegas for a couple of days; again for work.

I was home the entire next week but had much to do at work to prepare for another trip to Europe (I know poor me - having to go to Germany and Paris for the second time in less than a year). By the time I left work each day that week I was exhausted and overwhelmed and although going for a run would have probably been good for me I collapsed instead at the end of each day. I managed only one run of 5 miles on the San Gabriel River Trail at a pretty decent clip of 8:20 pace.

On Friday of that week (10/30) I was off to Germany, then Switzerland and finally France before returning to the good old USA on Monday, November 8th. Our schedule was pretty jammed packed on this trip. I realistically had time to run in Germany but jet lag hit me hard so I just could not get up the energy to run in the mornings. I did manage a meager 2.5 miles in Interlaken, Switzerland one morning. One interesting note of that run was seeing cows grazing in the central park of the city. Switzerland was beautiful and I would love to return to get a chance to see more.

This past week back home I was exhausted yet again from jet lag. Couple that with my general hesitancy to get out in the dark when the temperature dips below 60. Ideal conditions really, except for the darkness, but I wimped out none the less. Finally on Friday I had an opportunity to run in the afternoon while the sun was still up and the temps were in the 70's. It was only 4 miles but being in Bonelli reminded me why I loved running in the first place.

So until this morning, nearly 4 weeks since the Duke City Marathon, I'd run a whopping 11.5 miles. This is about as "slug-like" as I've been since I began running without a really good reason, i.e. injury. I've booked my plans to run the Austin Marathon in February and took a look at my schedule and realized that I was already behind the plan.

My CA Cruisers were planning on running 10 miles this morning and my friend Terry was planning on running up to 12. I was afraid that going for 10 after only running that much in the last month might not be the smartest idea.

Because today was my wife's birthday I took the opportunity to skip both the Cruisers and Terry and stay home in the morning to make breakfast for Lisa. Before I was a runner, breakfast on the weekend was a ritual at our house. Living with Runner Darrell, breakfast on the weekend has gone by the wayside.

I finally opted on running at the San Gabriel River Trail after breakfast. I decided to just go until I was pooped and I made it 8 miles before I realized that I was nearing the end of my energy stores. I was 2 miles from the car at that point so I finished the last 2 miles and got in 10 miles in 1:43. I had purposely kept the pace nice and easy. Those last two miles today felt like mile 25 and 26 of a marathon. Boy have I got some work to do. Now, 8 hours later, my legs are telling me that I definitely went farther today than they are used to.

I need to keep this momentum going next week. Austin is only 3 months away and I've got those 20 milers looming out there in the future. Slugness be damned!