It started as the desire to complete just one 10K to say I did it. A few weeks into my training, a relationship came to an end and I lost my job. Those training runs quickly became my best friends as I sorted through the losses and uncertainty. Now, more than 4 years, training for 5 half marathons, and one knee surgery later, the challenges I have taken on in running have helped me understand that I can take on, and conquer, whatever lies in my path ahead.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Up Yonder on the Chattahoochie

I got my long run in after work - 7 miles. I ran on the 3 mile loop at the Chattahoochie off New Northside. It's pretty well shaded, pretty well flat, soft trails, and, most importantly, has water fountains along the way. It also has distance markers every quarter mile.

Math and I haven't gotten along so well since 8th grade when Mr. Coffee "lost" several of my tests and I almost failed and would go off on screaming jags and throw books at the class and stuff. But I digress. I have to be very literal about keeping up with miles and it usually takes way more thought than it should to figure out how to track 7 miles on a 3 mile loop.

On this trail, I go from the start marker around to the 3 mile marker - which is NOT at the same place as the start marker. So I turn around there and run the trail backwards. I planned, once I arrived back at start, to turn around and go back out for 1/2 mile and back. But it was a tough run, and I knew that there was no way that I would go back out for that last mile if my car was in sight at mile 6. So hang in there with me: I'm running "backwards" according to the mile markers. At the mile 1 marker (which was the end of mile 5 of the run), I turned around, ran back to the 1.5 mile marker, then turned back around to finish. See, I really had to think all of this through in just as much detail as I'm writing it to be sure I was figuring the miles correctly.

The deal with myself was that once I got to the 1 mile marker again (mile 6 in my run), I'd just try to keep running as far as I could back to the car/start marker. If I had to quit, it was okay. But I didn't quit!

5 comments:

Viv said...

Thorny, I am so happy the run went extremely well. I was worried with the knee giving you a lil probs the other day.

Tammy said...

WTG on the run!

I have to do any out and back portion of a long run at the very beginning too. It's too easy to skip it if you save it for last.

Al's CL Reviews said...

Glad the knee wasn't bugging you.
May have to look at that path.

Al's CL Reviews said...

You have been tagged!

Aka Alice said...

So you did a double out-and back on an out-and back course... Awesome and good for you!

I could relate to your story about figuring out the math of your long run. I have the same problem. I run with a couple of math-smart friends. They've stopped trying to explain to me how to convert kilometers to miles in my head as I'm running, or how to estimate my speed or finish time based on split times or something like that...

I usually just smile and nod as I have absolutely no idea what they're talking about.