Day 247: Adrenalin Junkie

I apologize in advance for subjecting you to the ravings of an adrenalin junkie, but today, that's exactly what I am. High on happy fleet vibes. The weekend no longer feels complete without a long run, though today's was a bit on the short side of long due to some slight tapering off in advance of the long long long run a week from today. I went 12k, and my feet felt like they had wings. In fact, I kicked the pace up quite a bit for the last half of the run, just to see what it would feel like, to test where the edge was, and it felt like flying. Due to fine spring weather, I changed my route and ran out toward the big sky, as one of my running friends calls it, out through the park and the campus, and included in the loop two big long hills, though the weird thing was that neither taxed me. I felt just as good at the top as at the bottom. Toward the end, the faster pace was beginning to eat away at my calm breath, but it's not the pace I envision taking into the half-marathon on Saturday. I'll go a good deal slower, and speed up the last 5k or so if I'm feeling good. However, that is how I'd like to run the 10k in May--as quickly as I comfortably can. Quick and light and easy.

When I was a child, pre-puberty, I loved to run. I ran pretty much anywhere and everywhere. Why walk, when you could run? I was fast and light on my feet, and it felt easy. I jogged regularly with my dad from the time I was about 7. As a teenager, I lost that fleet and light feeling, and now that I think of it, I also stopped running everywhere. My fitness inevitably dropped, and cross country meets were basically places where I would torture myself with high expectations backed up by limited preparation. Let's just say I was no track star. But I wasn't exactly trying that hard--except on race day.

I've been training and increasing my weekly and now daily exercise slowly over the past year and three months, and it's beginning to feel like I've arrived somewhere. My body is pared down; my endurance is steady. And who knows how much more progress there is to see or experience in this body, but I'm somewhere already, somewhere different, somewhere that takes me back to childhood and that ease of running. I start to run, and my face breaks into a grin. I trust my body to carry me. I trust my breath. I trust myself to speed up or slow down, to listen and respond to what my body can and can't do. It's pure joy out there.

Will I like running a race as much as I like just plain old running? If so, there may be more races in my future. If not, there will be as many more long weekend runs as my joints can carry me.

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I wrote awhile back about feeding myself properly during training, and I've discovered a fondness for protein bars (and, yes, they're sort of disgusting and totally against my principles). Which makes me think I should start making my own homemade versions. I've also discovered that I can and should be eating more, and more frequently, so I eat when I'm hungry, and drink a lot of water, and eat more again. Basically healthy choices: nuts, seeds, fruit, and carbs when nothing else will do. During longer runs, I carry a Gatorade-type drink and suck on these gummie bear things, which have a soothing effect, whether or not they actually give me much extra energy. I'm not having any anxiety over the hunger/feeding balance anymore.