Gutsy Run

Saturday while Aaron had soccer practice, Jacob and I were out on the field just kicking the soccer ball around. Having just run 14 miles the day before, I must admit that my legs were feeling a little heavy, so just running around a little bit and kicking the ball didn't feel the best, but I knew it was good for me. At some point as we were just kicking it, one of us (me) challenged the other to race the length of the field. I have no idea why one of us had that idea, but once the challenge was issued, there was no backing down. Fully anticipating my speedy son to completely destroy me, I even let him do the count - "ready . . . set . . ." I think he was expecting that I was going to cheat (as most Dad's do) on the start, so I fully let him say "go" and once I saw him running, I started as fast as I could. I could not believe that I quickly took the lead, and as I lengthened my stride I began to pull away even more. By the time we got to the end, I was able to let up and cruise to the end. Jacob could not believe that his old man had just beaten him, and I was in some shock about it myself. It's not like he's a little kid anymore - the kid is a speedy almost-13-year-old who plays soccer year round with a travel soccer club. I've marveled at his speed on the soccer pitch, as he would track down another player from behind to break up a breakaway. And I just beat him in a flat out sprint. That showed me how much I have grown as a runner, because I could not do that last year.

All that being said, I paid for that sprint. I could feel it in my thighs Sunday and yesterday, and I could still feel it today. Yesterday I did run a nice, easy 6 miles, and it definitely helped break up that soreness. It was so neat how the stiffness that I felt at the beginning of the run faded, and how I got so much stronger and looser by the end. Today was my day for interval training, and I was actually looking forward to it after my "race" on Saturday. I pushed it really hard in my intervals. For my intervals, I run at a local park, there is a lap that is a little more than 400M. I ran a hard lap, then jogged a lap, and then repeated those 2. I think broke up the lap, and would run hard a half-lap, followed by the jog. Lastly, I quartered the lap, followed by a quarter jog. For my own records, I ran 2 full, 2 half, 4 quarters, and sprinted up the hill out of the park. Add in the warm up and cool down, it was 5.1 miles, and even factoring in the slow jogs after the hard intervals, my average pace was 8:45. One more run tomorrow, and then we head South.