It’s been two days since my last run, and it’s supposed to rain/snow tomorrow. My daughter felt well enough to go to school today after snuggling on the couch yesterday with her box of tissues, ginger ale, and books. This meant… drum roll, please… I was free to run as long as I wanted!
I headed out a little after 7:30 AM. While I was running, something someone said to me on Twitter kept rolling around in my head. He mentioned that it’s good to do a long run once a week, when you don’t focus on distance and go purely for time. This gets the body used to running for longer amounts of time. I’m not actively training for a race and have never used an on-line training program or even a book to get me to the start of a race, so all the theory I’ve learned is absolutely second-hand.
At around mile five I decided to just… keep going. My pace jumped between 8:40 and 8:15 per mile, certainly not fast based on my past performances, but pretty good all the same.
Two miles later I hit the sixty minute mark. I was seven miles in and at this pace, if I were doing a half-marathon, I’d be coming in at about 1:51:30, a full nine minutes slower than my half-marathon PR back in December 2009 (the Rock N Roll Las Vegas race). So, since I wasn’t going for speed, how about running just for the sake of running? JuliBell writes a blog and commented the other day “it’s called yoga PRACTICE, not yoga PERFECT”. At this moment in time, my running felt like yoga. I was practicing the art of running, not the perfection. What freedom.
And so it went. I ran for ninety one minutes and covered eleven miles. This is the longest I’ve run since my half-marathon race, and my immediate thought was “why did you wait so long?” Honestly? I don’t know.
I’m happily tired now. I’ve put in a good day’s play and I’m mellow and sated. I thought briefly that I should pick a marathon and start training for it, so I could get in lots MORE long runs. But then, the happiness that I felt in practicing my run all but disappeared. Having to work out a training plan, financially commit and then register… I want to enjoy the art of practice.
Today was all about finishing a ninety minute run. I wasn’t racing myself, I wasn’t trying to do a 90-minute tempo run at sub-8’s. Today was about running for ninety minutes and enjoying the time.
When was the last time you let yourself enjoy an activity without pushing yourself harder, faster, stronger? I don’t mean when you play with the kids, either. Maybe you’re gentler with yourself than I am with myself. But on the off-chance that you’re as competitive with yourself as I am with myself, then maybe we all need to reassess, even just a little, to find the joy in the motion.
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Partly Cloudy
Great post!! Very good point about running long periods of time & not for mileage.
Hi Kim, thanks for reading. I know I should probably get a training book and learn the what-nots and the who-ha of being a serious athlete, but then sometimes I think… would that take away the inherent enjoyment of just going out and trying something new? I don’t know. More information is usually a good thing.
Great job, Lara! I’m trying to work my way up to running for an hour. Good to know I can just do that without worrying so much about pace, distance etc. Maybe I’ll give it a go this weekend.
Glad I could motivate you to try a new training aspect! Maybe we’ll run together again on Sunday?
My yoga instructor uses that phrase each week too. I’m so glad you’re discovering the true essence of running. Welcome to the Other Side, where all of us Type B runners like to linger as long as we can.
I think I’m one of those kids that scoots between groups, getting along with lots of different people and taking nuggets from different places. I find motivation in so many places!
Namaste
The last time I jut had fun with an activity was when I went on the middle school ice skating field trip. So much fun! Actually we go again this week and I am looking very forward to it.