Date: 2/6/22
Training Day: 63
Miles: 4.6
Time: 60 min
Shoes: Xero HFS
Weather: High 30s

How It Felt: I did an out-and-back, and the out was uphill, so I felt like I was out of shape and pathetic. On the back I felt like a gazelle, even though I still only ran as fast I was running on flat ground while in St George. I blame the copious amounts of taco truck food.

Commentary: My husband and I both crashed hard Saturday night, so we both got up early-ish Sunday morning. Instead of lollygagging around, we went straight to the coffee shop in town that supposedly had great coffee and breakfast burritos. They were out of breakfast burritos, but their asiago jalapeño bagel with cream cheese was pretty tasty.

Even if I don’t do all my runs for the week, my goal is to at least do the hard ones – strides, intervals and the long run. I knew I needed to get my long run in, but I didn’t want to. I felt fat, bloated and sluggish from gorging myself at the taco truck. My shin splints were annoying. I was also annoyed to be heading back home.

Thankfully I have a great husband. He told me I should look for a place to run before we got to the mountain pass so it would still be warm enough to run. I made excuses why we shouldn’t bother stopping, but when the rest area came up I told him to pull over. I knew that once I got moving I probably wouldn’t regret it.

And I didn’t. I knew the uphill was slowing me down, and for once I didn’t care what my pace was. I didn’t feel like pushing myself, so I took it easy and simply ran.

I can’t say that the run physically felt great, but it felt great running to run. In fact, the time flew by, and I felt like I could just keep running. Part of me wanted to keep going until I didn’t feel like going anymore and then calling my husband to come pick me up. In hindsight, that’s what I should have done. But I still enjoyed my run nonetheless.

In the future, I’m hoping to be able to recapture that feeling. I want to run and not look at watch, not care about my pace, how far I’ve gone, or how long I’ve been going. That’s how long runs should be, easy and carefree. Perhaps I’ll make a “carefree run” activity on my watch that only shows my heart rate. That way none of the other stuff can distract me, and I can just run.

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