Thursday, February 24, 2011

Fresh, and Fartleking Pain Free

Just a quicky......

I ran last night! I ran, in the sun, around the reservoir....with no pain!

I should be telling you that I went for a nice, slow, easy 3 miler. I should be saying that I played it safe, took it easy, just took the foot our for a slow test run.

I didn't. It felt so great to be out there running, I just couldn't help but have fun. I fartlek'd my way around the res. Slow the first 100 ft, realized there was not even a hint of pain...picked it up down and around the first corner and maintained a steady pace up the hill. There are certain hills at the res that I always allow myself to do more of a walk/trot up, but last night I just wanted to keep pushing hard up every hill. When the slim strip of gravel would appear next to the paved trail, I was on it. I loved that there were a few sections where the water run off has rutted out the gravel and created small little ditches. I was having my own little trail run within my actual run, pushing as fast as possible on the downhills and keeping my feet fast and light to maneuver through the ditches. I would slow at the bottom and tops of the hills to wait for my running partner, Emma. She is good for a 30 minute lap, but I was giving her a run for her money for sure.

One of the fun things for me as a mom is to see her get so excited when she is able to push harder than she thought she could. We were passed by a dude right at the top of the hardest hill. We had stayed in front of him all the way up, but when we slowed at the top for Em to recover a bit, he passed us. This is a hard hill, and she honestly did push hard running up it, and was spent. We were trotting along, and I leaned down and whispered to her to "go get him". She looked up and smiled and went after him. We stayed right on his heels, he knew we were there and was doing the over the shoulder "what are you doing?" look. She gets this look a lot when she does trail runs and is used to the "what is this kid doing right behind me" look. I told Emma if we stayed on him until the "short cut" we could take him. If you run the res you know the short cut, it's just passed the top of the hard hill. The paved trail turns left and then bends back around to the right and heads downhill, there's some picnic tables at the top.....or you can just not go left or right and go straight and fly up and over the hill and down the dirt trail and come out back down on the paved trail. The kids are slightly afraid of the dirt downhill as it can be slippery, but without missing a beat, when "the dude" made the left turn on the trail, she surged passed him going off road, up and over the hill, running as fast as she could down the dirt. We came out about 50 ft in front of him....but he now knew he was in a race! We held the lead for quite a ways, but he took us again on one of the last hills, and we didn't see him again.

I kept waiting for a hint of pain, a twinge, tweak, anything....but nothing. I had been pain free for 3 days, and waited 2 more days before attempting a run. I am so glad I waited. Running with uber fresh legs, and no pain of any kind.....doesn't happen very often. I am heading out at noon for a 5 miler with Brian. Hoping for another pain free run, full of fartleks!

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