Tuesday, December 26, 2006

It's not about the bike

Instead of a white Christmas yesterday, it was a wet Christmas. I opened the door ready to head out for my Christmas run at 6:30am and all I see and hear is the pouring rain. A strong downpour, a 10-15 mph wind and 42 degrees temperature ...... Should I run? I'm in my last week of recovery from the marathon, so I don't think it will hurt to skip out on a run. Not wanting to get soaked in the cold rain I got on my bike, which I've used more indoors than outdoors, and rode for an hour while watching my favorite running movie Chariots of Fire. It's always been a tradition for me to run on special days (b-day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, etc.), so I was feeling guilty during the day. Since it stopped raining in the early evening I ended up putting in an easy 30 minutes of running.

This morning I ran on the Cape Fear River Trail. Either everyone was back at work or they all had a long christmas and are sleeping in. During the 9 miles of running on this trail I only saw a couple walkers. It was surprising noone else was out running because the trail is normally busy with walkers, runners, and bikers. As I trotted along on my run I tried to focus on running easy with good form. I must have gotten in the zone around mile 3, because I was cruising along at 6:40 pace. Going out the breathing was easy, inhaling and exhaling every three steps. On the way back I increased the pace just a little to where I was breathing in and out every couple steps. As I approached the last mile I picked up the pace again just to break an hour for the run.

Today's run: 59:54 (9 miles - 6:39 pace)
Monday: 29:56 (4.2 - 7:08 pace)

2 comments:

Phil said...

Wayne ... nice marathon recovery and an impressive collection of books.

Eric said...

Yeah, I was checking out your library as well, trying to make out the spines...DRF and Advanced Marathoning. Must haves. Paula--didn't know about that one. Lore of Running is a great one. Duel In The Sun and maybe Once A Runner way on the right? Nice collection.

I like the bike, too. I used mine outdoors about three times before I got sick of the wind and worrying about traffic. It's been a convenient, if expensive, way to cross-train.