11.27 miles
1:32:30 • 8:17 average
Octavia City Loop
75 degree, cloudy, humid, threatening rain
7:00 AM start
NB MT10
Garmin link http://connect.garmin.com/activity/325170419
Today was the longest I've run in months, since before Boston. I felt pretty good, relaxed, for the first 7 miles. Then, as I've experienced so many times in the past, my body knows, remembers, the exact distance of my most recent long run — 8.5-9 miles. That when the "just walk" radio station started to play in my mind. I could see the dark clouds coming at me out of the west as I headed uptown on the streetcar tracks from Lee Circle. I started a silent, internal chant for rain as I started to slow down, trying to resist the song in my head, "walk, dude, just walk..." Then right around Jackson Ave. I spotted a runner ahead of me, maybe 350 meters out, also heading uptown. So I shifted the internal chatter to "just try to reel her in." I assumed it was a woman. But had no way to really tell. Whoever it was they were statuesque, and not coming back to me very quickly. They could run, for sure. I managed a little bit of an increase in tempo and suffered for it. I hit Washington and I'd only made up about a block. Then Louisiana and another block closer to the figure in front of me. I was falling apart and not closing very fast. I wasn't going to catch her. (By now I could see for certain that it was a woman, a tall thin woman with a very smooth stride.) I pushed harder anyway trying to maintain form and my legs were turning to rubber then stone then rubber again. I was cooked. I did catch her, one block before my turn at Upperline just as the rain started. I was toast. I slowed as I turned for the half mile jog to my front porch. The rains came and it felt like I'd gone to heaven jogging easily in the rain. Waiting for me on the porch was a dry towel and a tall bottle of "red sauce," Endurox R4, that Kirsten had so lovingly left out for me — tasted like heaven. My first long run was a success. Life is good.
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