One of the best people in this world is my dear friend Ed Hasse. He is just the greatest person ever. I treasure and greatly value the times when we are together. I especially love when we can run together.
Today we enjoyed our first ever “Social Distance” run. Ed came over to help me on my first three mile run since my surgery in January.
One might thing that the Governor’s decision to close school the rest of the year would make life easier on teachers and principals…
NOT SO!
The mileage isn’t what matters here.
After running on the treadmill the other day, and thinking about how great that run was, I have had a paradigm change.
For this post, I’ll cover my last two runs. It’s basically the same story in so many ways.
Two days ago, on Tuesday, April 14, I went out for my second one mile run. This was the second time I would actually run the full one-mile distance. The run itself felt better than on Sunday, and my time indicated I did much better. I finished at 9:25. That was significantly faster than the effort on Sunday. I was pleased and proud.
The fact that I am writing right now says a lot about my enthusiasm for this run today.
It’s not that I don’t want to run. I do. I wanted to run last night, but the locked gate ended that idea.
No, I want to run. I do. I just don’t like running when it’s cold and wet outside and… it’s cold and wet outside.
Well, I am falling onto a nice pattern, running every other day, just like when I first became a marathoner about 18 years ago. Back then I strictly followed the marathon plan in the great book The Non-Runners Marathon Trainer. That plan called for three or four runs a week – basically every other day. In the years since then I became a sometimes every day runner and other times a five-day-a-week runner. In my prime, when I set my marathon PR in Chicago (2006) (boy, that was a long time ago…) I was peaking at 50+ mile weeks.
But, for now, I am an every other day runner and my distances don’t compare.
It’s all part of the process.
It’s a good process.
Today I bit off way more than I could chew.
I was fortunate, all three of my sons were home to celebrate a birthday, and two of them, Ryan and Ethan, are training for some upcoming long races. Because of that, they were both willing to slog along on a twelve mile “run” with me.
Our goal was to complete the entire Saddle River Bike Path, from Ridgewood to Rochelle Park, and then back again…a twelve mile jaunt.
You know, it’s funny…
I was getting very nervous about my upcoming NYC Marathon. And although I have run twenty marathons, coming back from an injury that sidelined me for so long had me scared.
(Let’s just say this – an Achilles tear is simply no fun.)
Because it’s been so long since I have run far. I’ve been scared. Very scared.
Dr. Sem's Blog 