A Great Day for a Run

As I carefully made my way across ice and snow between mile 2.5 and 4 on the Perkiomen Trail a cyclist passed me going the other direction and called out "A great day for a run". In the blur of his passing I did not see the look on his face and his tone of voice provided no clue as to his intention. And my reply (to myself) was "I think It's a better day for a run than a bike ride". The number of cyclists on the trail today was impressive given the conditions. I said to Sara later that it was almost like they were saying "It's MARCH darn-it. I WILL ride." 😜

It was however a great day for a run --- for me. I don't know if it was the sun; the new shoes; running on a section of the trail that I haven't been to in very long time; or the intervals I chose; but I had a really good run today. And this was despite having missed my weekday runs again. I am just so weather fatigued that I could not go out on Tuesday or Thursday this week. I know I can't keep that up and expect success. With more sunlight and (hopefully) less cold I should be able to bring myself to do better moving forward.

Today, I met Sara and Elaine at Lower Perkiomen Valley Park. We all had our own plans and after good mornings all around, we set off to accomplish them. Spoiler alert: after checking in again before going home, it appears we all were successful.

Over the course of this week, I came to realize that 1 minute walks followed by 1.5 mile runs is not working for me right now. I wanted to do it because on race day I'd like to run between water stops and the water stops are about 1.5 miles apart for OCNJ Half. I want to do that because for my best half ever that was my strategy. I felt so good after that race. BUT as I pondered this since last week's run, I came to terms with the fact that I was in a different place for that race. First, it was at 7 or 8 years ago and came in the fall during training for a marathon. I was in much better race shape. If I work hard these next 6.5 months, I might get to the point where I could run between water stops. But right now, I need to dial it back.

So for today, I chose 1 minute walk; 3 minute run intervals. It worked very well. I never once looked at my timer anxious for the run interval to be over; I finished with enough left over to charge up the hill that brings the trail from creek level to the parking lot at the end.

As I started out on the paved portion of the trail between mile 1 and 2, I tried to focus on my form during the run portions. I tend to hunch over when I get tired. In fact, the shoulders up; hunching over probably makes me tire faster. So I worked on keeping my shoulders down and torso mostly upright. This worked until I hit mile 2.5. The trail is higher up here; it's mostly dirt and gravel and the hillside provides enough shade that the snow doesn't melt. The cross country skiers love it. It provided me with a running challenge. The snow was about 2 -3 inches thick. It was a combination of hard and soft that made for very uneven footing. There were some tire ruts (from park ranger vehicles or rogue ATV riders I could not tell) but these were narrow. To run in them required actual one foot in front of the other strides.

My form during this section suffered. I realized many times that my shoulders were bunched and I was leaning forward. I couldn't manage to keep from falling and maintain my form at the same time. I'm generally adept at multi tasking but the task of trying to stay upright on uneven terrain while running apparently uses up more brain cells than other tasks. I think the adventure of it though helped the miles to feel like they flew by today. Even though the conditions did force me to slow down.

If this were race day, at six miles I have just come up to the start of the boardwalk at St. James Place. The Longport Bridge is behind me. 😊I still have to get past Brown's Donuts with out going into sugar shock from the smell but I think I got this!

Keep smiling keep moving
-Paula