This is the first of hopefully many posts of my road to redemption. My personal goal is to return to the competitive running world and to break my PR's in the 5k and longer races. I honestly could care less if anyone reads this; I just need something to hold me accountable and to keep me motivated.
Last Saturday, I entered my yearly XC race (with Breakneck TC President and 3rd place finisher Nick DeSantis) which inevitably becomes a disaster. This year was a disaster of epic proportions. To make a long story short, it was a cold, windy day on a tough course, and at the time I was out of shape and had a viral infection that made it's appearance known half a mile into the race. My time is too embarrassing to post, but I will say it was 4 minutes slower than the first 5k I've ever run.
While being bed-ridden and recovering this week, I had a lot of time to think. Then as I was almost feeling better, the movie Endurance was on Showtime. For those of you that don't know the movie, I highly recommend it. It is the story of Haile Gebrselassie, the greatest distance runner ever. It details his life from being an Ethiopian farm worker as a child to the greatest distance runner in the world. Needless to say, it was the perfect movie to watch at the perfect time. I DVRed it so that I can continue to watch it whenever I need some extra inspiration. Onto the first run...
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| Moments before the first steps of the Journey |
Earlier tonight I embarked on the long road back. My goal for this week is run 25 miles. It's pretty obtainable, but also needed so that I do not try to do too much too soon as I have in the past. I set out this evening to run about 3 miles at an easy pace. I didn't wear a watch because the time did not matter, it was just getting out the door. It was about 36 degrees and windy. I started out at an easy pace. The first mile was fairly easy as it was down hill. I did a loop around my old High School and then to a neighborhood in the next town over. About 2.5 miles in, I began to feel my lack of fitness. Around this time, a middle aged lady was taking out her trash and noticed me running down the street and yelled out to me "What are you running for?" Typically I don't respond when people yell out to me while I'm running, but tonight was different. With out think I yelled out "Myself!" and then began the mile long journey uphill back to my house.
I was really starting to struggle at this point and was mentally hoping for a red light at the top of the hill to get at least a short rest. All throughout the uphill climb my attitude changed from wanting the red light or hoping for green to continue my run uninterrupted. Naturally and quite fitting for the purpose of this long journey, when I got to the intersection, the light was yellow. I sprinted through the intersection and picked up the pace until I got home. The run ended up being about 3.75 miles and it felt like I ran about 7:20 pace per mile. I know it's going to be a hard journey; hopefully you join me on it.
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