Day 15 (continued)

Okay, I have a little time now. Let me reiterate that I was pleasantly surprised that this morning was nowhere near as difficult as I expected it to be. This may be another tick mark in the column that says that the real battles of running are mental ones, not physical ones.

As I biked home for lunch, I noticed that that litte ache in the area below my right knee. Apart from that little ache, and some minor protests from my muscles as I came up the house steps, I feel surprisingly good. It's not just the lack of aches. I feel up, with plenty of energy. My blood sugar levels yesterday and today have been the best they've been in years. In fact, they were still so low after breakfast today that I needed to grab a banana. Now that's a good problem to have.

So, while I'm not quite ready to jump onto the "running is awesome" bandwagon, I am quite surprised that we've made it this far, and am pleasantly surprised that I'm feeling as good as I am today, especially after how bad I felt last week.

Because it was so dark this morning, we decided to go the other direction on the trail. The way we normally go is under a thick canopy of trees for much of the length we use, and since it was still dark this morning [Ah, the joy of living in the northern lattitudes!] and we had only a sliver of moon, we decided to try the other route. It worked out well. Lights from town reflected over the water to give us some light, and the path was much more open to one side. This is likely the route we will use going forward.

After completing our warm-up walk, we had turned around and walked back to a bench where we adjusted our shoes and did some last minute stretching.

Like Mrs. F, I did restrain myself a bit on our first set, but my pace was right on what it had been most of last week (Friday excluded). The 90 second walk was plenty of time to recoup, and the first half of the second set was no problem. I figured the set would be difficult, so I worked on pacing myself. It definately took more effort to get through the second half, but it was still managable. The three minutes of walking was just about right, too. Boy am I glad the plan called for doing 90-90 for the next set--I think doing another three minute set would have made this morning a nightmare!

Knowing that the last three minute set was coming, the 90 second walk seemed too short, but I picked up the pace and moved on. I had ridden alongside one of my sons yesterday as he ran three miles, and I was encouraged to see that his primary cadence was not much faster (or so it seemed) than what I was doing in each of our sessions. [I'm sure his stride was longer, but that's something I'll need to improve on another day.] I just kept going--footfall after footfall. I found myself checking the watch more often, announching "half way," "two-thirds," "three-fourths," and finally, "ten seconds," "five," and "done!"

While we technically only had a final three minute walk ahead of us, with the extra distance from our starting bench to the car we ended up walking almost five minutes. Unlike some days where we have been completely drained, however, the extra walking felt good today.

I must say that I am looking forward to Wednesday. If it is anything like today, I might actually enjoy it. I didn't get to bed as early as 9 PM last night, as planned, but it was still early. I think the extra rest did me good.