Running - my friend

I'm not as dedicated to running as I was when I started this blog. I take more random days off because running isn't convenient than I did when I first fell in love with running. I also take it for granted a lot, and I don't really race much anymore. I think I did just one race last year, and I only half-heartedly trained for it (the TC 10 miler, because if you are going to run just one race in a year you might as well make it a 10 mile race). I typically run 20-25 miles per week, without any training plan or any real goals from any of the mileage I put in. That suits me just fine most of the time. I might run  a few races this year, or I might not, but I can always count on being able to run a solid 6 miles if I feel like it.

We visited my Dad and Step-Mom yesterday and spent the night at their new house. When I woke up this morning it was raining steadily, and my initial thought of driving to the Lakewalk to run sort of vanished. I had visions of the kids throwing rocks into Lake Superior while T and I ran. In the cold rain though I knew nobody would be up for that but me. I still wanted to run though so I quickly scanned the map from my running app to see what routes I could come up with. I found something that looked to be a decent route and headed out. The first thing I realized upon starting though was that there was a really long kind of steep hill at the start. Rather than readjust my route I decided to suck it up and run up the hill and hope for the best. The run ended up being great. Despite the hills, I was in a good groove and the miles ticked away and felt easy. The best part of planning an out and back route with a huge hill at the beginning is knowing that you get to run down that huge hill at the end. The hills did make my overall time slower than I like to see, but even with that my time was decent. I ran faster than I do from home many times (although my routes from home all have at least one cursed hill in them too).

I won't drone on about running, because I think people who don't run actually hate hearing about running from runners. Weird. I will add though that today reminded me how much I love to run. It reminded me how awesome it feels to be out there in the rain when everyone else thinks you are a bit crazy, and it reminded me that I still have it in me if I want it enough. I'm glad running is still my friend, and I know it will be for a long time to come.

Notice the rain drop falling from my hat brim