Tag: hills

jan 19/8.5 MILES

40 degrees!
mississippi river road bike path

I’m scheduled to do this run, my long run for the week, on Saturday, but it’s supposed to rain (RAIN!?) tomorrow on Saturday and I don’t want to run for almost 90 minutes in chilly rain. My love of the messiness has it’s limits. 

I ran along the river road path, towards downtown Minneapolis. There are two monster hills on this path, around miles 4 and 5. These hills are fairly steep and long and intimidating. They’re part of the Mississippi Gorge and lead you from the bottom of the gorge to the top of the bluff. Today, they weren’t so bad. I didn’t want to cry or collapse when I got to the top. I just kept running slowly and steadily and pretty soon my body had forgotten that it had just climbed for about 1/3 of a mile.

I know there is a lesson to be learned (or at least articulated and analyzed) in my success in climbing those hills. And I’m sure that it’s significant for my thinking about undisciplining myself and breaking (down) bad habits. But right now, after running 8.5 miles, I’m too tired to think of it or write about it. Maybe I should rethink when I write these entries so that they’re not right after my run.

jan 15/7.12 MILES

23 degrees
mississippi river road bike path

Technically I was supposed to run 8 miles today, but I’m okay with 7.12. 8 was a bit ambitious and would have made my running total for the week just slightly too much. Plus, I’m proud of myself for running as much as I did. My route included two monster hills and I managed to run up both of them at a steady pace without dying…or worse, stopping to walk.

I’m mostly kidding about the walking. I can see all sorts of reasons why walking during a training run or a race would be a good idea. For me, right now, walking is a bad idea. Stopping to walk in past runs/races encouraged me to run too fast. My goal right now is to run slow and steady and to not stop.

As I was running, I listened to the final chapters of Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. He hates walking and considers doing it during a race to be a failure. So much so that at the end of the book he describes what he wants his tombstone to read: “At least he never walked.” I’m not sure what to make of that line and of Murakami’s hard and fast refusal to ever walk. Is it too rigid? A bit arrogant? Just a personal goal that he doesn’t apply to (and use to judge) others?