Running with Jack

It was a humid 9C/48F and windy as I headed out for my 20K/12.4M run. I was a little tired so elected to bring my MP3 player for motivation. But this proved unnecessary as the wind carried me over the first half hour of running. My tempo quickly picked up to a crucifying rate as I sped over my route in the reverse direction. I first came out of my daze after about 90 minutes as my legs started screaming at me to slow down. Shortly after this I changed directions and headed into the wind, paying for every enjoyable kilometer that I had had up to that point. The last 25 minutes were tough, my legs ached from the too high of pace that I had been following, each minute found me struggling to keep any essence of speed. Finally I wound my way back through the village to my house and collapsed on the doorstep – well maybe it wasn’t that bad, but I was pretty well spent by the time I arrived. I walked for 10 minutes after the run to try to loosen up the legs some.

This morning my legs are a little sore, but I am not complaining. It is my opinion that to improve our running we need to push once in awhile. Of course the trick is to learn how to push ourselves without going overboard and getting injured. I have been fortunate so far, but considering the mileage I have been doing lately last night's run was probably getting close to the boarder line.

Tomorrow is Good Friday, a holiday in Germany. Saturday is supposed to be our only good day of weather for the weekend, so I am thinking about moving my long run from Saturday morning to Friday morning (tomorrow), which will allow me to spend the day in the garden on Saturday.

My wife wants to take a drive through the Black Forest sometime this weekend, but I heard they still have snow in the higher elevations. As I just took off my snow tires on the car, as it is spring in our area, this may keep us from making this trip until the snow is gone.