Week 2: Day 6

This morning when I came home from work, I reset my trip odometer at one of my known mileage points and proceeded to drive 3.5 miles more to mark out my 9 mile run for today.
Since it was my first day of work (my Monday in Dispatch Talk), and I had not slept at all yesterday afternoon but worked through the night on the sleep I got Thursday night, my concentration level was down.

I was anxious to get back home, crawl into bed and get a few hours sleep before the longest run to date in my training program. Even when I was driving it (and this should have been where I realized I was making a mistake) it seemed like an awful long 4.5 miles from home. My turn around point ended up being directly in front of Grandview High School on Arapahoe Road.

But, I thought, "Hey, this is the longest run I've done so far, it's bound to feel long." I turned around, drove home and went to bed.

About 4 and a half hours later, I woke up to the sound of jet fighters (F-16's) flying around the area. Since I have trouble getting back to sleep once I've gotten even 2 or 3 hours, I laced up my shoes and hit the road.

I started nice and slow, and figured it was more about getting the miles in than any kind of time target. While I was running I did see a flight of 4 F-16s flying in formation in circles around the area. I imagined they were practicing their fly-over formation for the festivities tonight since it's Independence Day.

But I was jogging and thinking about this and I realized that I restarted my odometer at the 1.5 mile mark, not the 1 mile mark. If I went all the way to the turn-around I picked out earlier in the morning I'd have gone 5 miles from home resulting in a total 10 miles. Worse than that, I had no idea where my actual turn-around should have been.

Arapahoe Rd is beautiful this far east and reminds me of Virginia. There are gentle ups and downs, no sidewalks, washed out shoulders, and vegetation growing right to the edge of the pavement in places. The weather too, was cooperating and the sun stayed hidden for much of the early morning and temps weren't too high. There was even a refreshing breeze that promised some rain later in the day if not an exact replay of the tempests that swept through the area yesterday.

So I did all 10. I felt good. Made sure not to push too hard, and just enjoyed the long slow run. I recall having done 10 mile runs about 1 time a week through my senior year of high school, maybe a little less if there were several soccer teams I was playing on. But I would run down 622, cross at English Tavern, then over to Sunnymeade (sp), up that steep curving hill and down the other side, then out 677 to some railroad tracks just past the rock quary. I did that run almost regularly. Those were good runs.

Anyways... training for today complete. I've got work tonight, but I leave 2 hours early for Virginia!