It’s pager patrol week.. again. And it started out to be a bad week. I got paged for stuff all night long. For stuff I had to try to keep ahead of that I had no control over. It got to the point that I was getting paged about every hour and I would jump so my databases wouldn’t fall over and then I would try to do something between pages. It wasn’t working.
I tried to go for a real run. It was SIXTY SIX degrees at 6:330 in the morning. I wanted to get out in the gorgeous morning so bad. I made it three tenths of a mile and got paged. I ran home and did my magic. And got really upset because I really wanted to train… to run… to get out in the beautiful day.
I finally got talked into at least trying to go around the block. I finally sucked it up and tried my run.
And it made all the difference in my day.
I was GOING to go out into the dark. My race is in the dark. I keep thinking I need to train for the dark. But when I finally went out, it was daylight. And in that, it made so much difference. I got to see some of the prettiest morning glories climbing and creeping and shining in the sun. It wasn’t so hot that they shriveled right away. They were stunning.
I got to race a couple toddlers on bicycles complete with training wheels. The sidewalk was heavy with mud from the bike tires. The rain brought the cooler weather and the mud and brought out the giggles of kids racing a weird lady walking very fast through the neighborhood.
I saw blue jays (who did NOT want their picture taken even from reasonably far away), five of them, munching worms (presumably) in the yard.
But I did see the neatest bird with a read head. He was really neat. I thought he might be a woodpecker… but I think maybe he was a dove.
Ad I ran, I listened to music. I talked to the trees, and the flowers and the birds. They listened. I thought. I changed the way I thought.
I ran some, walked some. I ended up actually doing the run I do most days. Not the long run I was supposed to do, but based on the training plan, my “long” run should be about the run I do anyway.
Was it runners high that I felt as I walked in the road, sweat dripping down my neck?
I don’t know. I do Know that I felt better after the run, and the day looked up. I still love running through the dark, but… it made all the difference yesterday.
Pager week will never be conducive to my long runs, but I feel so much better for even getting in my short ones.
A Figment Of Fitness 