Monday, December 29, 2008

running up the score

I went for a fifteen mile run up the Arroyo Seco past the Rose Bowl and Devil’s Gate Dam to Johnson’s Rock/Field - one more mile to go to hit 800 for the year. It’s a little warmer here today than it’s been – 65-69 and sunny today – so it was nice to get out into it. It feels a little silly, though, to be pointlessly trying to get to a specific number of miles. When you convert 800 miles to kilometers you get 1287.2 – not a very exciting mark to shoot for, but just the same amount of running and time out under the sky. Still, it feels good to have (almost) made it to a goal that I’ve been focused on for a few months.

Fifteen was a good distance for me today. I considered going for eighteen. I think that would have pushed me just a little too far. Fifteen let me push at my limits just enough to notice without pushing over the edge. My pace was a little faster than it has been for my recent longer runs – hopefully that speed will continue into next year. I’m beginning to realize that fatigue is perhaps more closely related to elapsed time than to speed/pace, so to run a given distance, it should be easier to run it faster.

Found a coke in the fridge when I got back from the run (we’ve had some parties here) – awesome little recovery/pick-me-up – I may have to use that again.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Rob/Jonah- keeping track of miles is ridiculous, why do you do it? Oh, I rode 24 miles today for a monthly total of 137 and a yearly total of 1558.

mindful mule said...

Pretty good miles, Dan, but I want to see 2009 miles in 2009. You can do it.

Part of me would love to stop counting the miles... I just can't seem to make the shift to metric...