Two Saturdays ago, I was living the easy life. I went out to Clinton in the morning, ran a ten minute warm-up, a 5K, a ten minute warm-down and I was done for the day. Wow ! I was done at 10AM, and it was an afternoon of beer, snacks and friends.
No four hour ride and run, no long run run, no anything. Just a quick race and hanging out.
That was not the case this last Saturday.
I ran for 2 hours and 15 minutes and boy, did I feel like I'd earned something when I was done. Maybe it was just the 90 degree heat. Maybe it was that I was redeeming myself as a lousy two hour ride the night before.
But as I was running I thought about the difference between the two ways of spending Saturday morning. The 5K was kind of the 'old' me. Get up, drive (sometimes ridiculously far away), run a race, then drive home. The drive was usually way longer than the time spent running.
Don't get me wrong. 5ks are fine, I still run them, and I'm not knocking them.
But at the end of the day I guess I'd rather knock out a two-hour and fifteen minute run. There's time to think, music to listen to. Highs and lows to work through, all towards a goal that just starts to feel attainable in those longer moments. So keep those long runs coming Coach, because I'm ready for them.
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