Love the Long Run

Too soon to say for sure, but I think my running slump may be over. This morning, I went on the best long run of my life. At the root of it was a simple change in perspective. I honestly didn’t care how fast we ran. Sarah warned me that we’d be running slow (this was her first long run since her post-run trip to the E.R. two weeks ago) but I told her that was not a problem. And, really, I think that the slower pace was the key. We did 18.5 miles in 2 hours, 22 minutes, and 18 seconds, or a 7:41 pace. This is over half a minute per mile slower than what I’ve been doing on the long runs lately, so it was a significant change.

Of course, there were a couple other things that helped to elevate the run to such a lofty status. First off, the weather: It was a perfect 34 degrees, sunny, with almost no wind. For me, at least, that’s as good as it gets. I wore my light winter gear and was perfectly comfortable the entire run.

Then, there was the fact that we ran my favorite route. We started here in East Harlem, ran down the entire East River, then back up the Hudson to Columbia. I’ve done this giant U a few times now, but it never gets old. You get to see almost every neighborhood and every landmark that Manhattan has to offer. By the end of the run, I always feel like I own the island.

We made one stop along the way where I fueled up with a MetRX bar and Gatorade. Other than that, I didn’t have anything on the run. And, before leaving the house, I only had a couple pieces of toast. Yet, I never ran out of fuel like I’ve been doing lately. Very strange. Maybe it was the extra beers I drank last night… (I told you I was not stressing about this run at all.)

The only troubling thing was that my right foot was giving me a lot of pain. It started to swell up Thursday night again and has been very sore the past couple days. Somewhere around mile 12 today, it really started to be an issue. I’m going to run a fairly light week again this coming week and maybe even sneak in an extra rest day like I did this past week. I definitely don’t want that to get worse and turn into something serious.

Anyway, long story short, I had a great run and mainly that was just because I was out there running for the hell of it. I think I’m going to relax my interpretation of the training schedule even more moving forward. I want to be able to run whatever I feel like instead of feeling like it’s my duty to complete a certain number of miles at a certain pace.