Uh-Oh (or How I Learned to Love The Governor)

I recently posted about a race I did on Father's Day, where I achieved a recent personal record. By recent I mean my best since junior high / high school, which hardly even counts. So, anyhow, the good time has motivated me to keep running. And, seeing so many of my friends that have been dedicated to their workouts (including one who's lost over 100 pounds) has also been very motivating.

This motivation has manifested itself in me running pretty regularly. Not every day, because I don't really like running, I'm really just doing it to keep in shape. But, with the goal in mind of improving my times, I have been sticking to running more than just mixing it up with biking, elliptical, etc.

So, during my runs, the first mile usually sucks because I know I still have so far to go but eventually I just keep going and then I'm done. Some days are really tough - usually it feels tough to stick it out and finish the run. Others are just sort of mediocre. But every once in a while, you get one of those days where it just feels good. For me, these days are pretty irregular, I've really only ever had a few of them. One was maybe 3 or 4 weeks ago. Another was yesterday.

I'm preparing for a race on Thursday and so I wanted to do my final prep run yesterday, thinking I'd just do my normal loop, which equates to somewhere around a 5k. As an aside, I really have no idea why I haven't mapped out this loop to see how far it is, I've run it over 50 times and it would be nice to know how far I've gone and also track my times. Especially since I'm kind of a stat junkie, you'd think I would have done this by now. I digress.

For anyone that doesn't know running, you generally are supposed to take it pretty easy in the several days leading up to a race, I suppose it gives your body a chance to rest up and be in peak form on race day. So I went out last night just hoping to put my time in and be done with it until Thursday's race.

If you've run any distance before, then you're familiar with the ache or cramping feeling you get in your stomach, especially if you run too fast. Well, I found in my last really good run before last night that I got that ache very early in the run but it never got bad or made me feel like I needed to slow down. Same thing happened last night. Within the first half mile, I could feel it. But I could tell it was the good ache, where it wouldn't get worse and I was in complete control of it. I kept pushing myself and I could tell as I adjusted my effort the ache would change accordingly. So, it was acting sort of as a governor on my speed, similar to how the go karts at your local track are limited in their speed by a governor placed on the cart engine. It was weird and empowering, but it felt like I could control the ache very precisely. Like I had my hand wrapped around it and could throttle up or down just like a motorcycle.

Well, me and The Governor (since he's mine and personal he really should be capitalized) had a very nice run last night. So nice that I decided to push beyond my normal loop, even more than I have been in previous runs, maintaining a nice speed for nearly the entire way. My last few runs I didn't feel good but had extended about another half mile past the normal loop, primarily in an effort to improve my endurance. I decided last night I'd go about a mile past the normal loop. Things went pretty well for the most part although about halfway through the extension I started to get pretty wiped out. I believe maybe I did a Blago and impeached the Governor. Anyhow, I finished the run and cooled down, happy to have a nice run behind me. I hope me and the Gov hang out again soon.

The real problem here is that after my last really nice run, I had several in a row that were very difficult. And of course, rather than taking it a little more easy (as described earlier), I overextended myself. And, oh yeah, my next run is my race. I really am quite dumb - I hope I don't turn in an awful time Thursday, that would be disappointing.

In non-running news, I only have 3 weeks of class left! Got a B+ on my big assignment from last week, have revised it for re-submission today. Big final project is just starting up but I expect to make significant progress on it tonight after class, we'll be doing an in-class workshop on Thursday and then have another week to pretty it up for another workshop. I think it should be pretty good. Then the last thing is our in class final. So, the end is near!

Heading to Vegas in a few weeks too, definitely looking forward to that!

Song lyric of the day "Wait - there's something up ahead / I've seen its claws / I can see the mark it left / Well fed and eating with a thousand hands" Cassino - Governor (I confess to not having ever heard this song or of this group but this seemed pretty good!)

Until next time.

Ace