Got up early today - fine, 10am - and went for a long run as part of getting back to my marathon training plan.
It was a beautiful morning in Denver: sunny, with nary a cloud, and a brisk 30 degrees. I put on my running tights, socks, Brooks, a long-sleeve running top, and a t-shirt, then sucked in my gut a bit because the lack of running in the last month is really catching up to me.
And off I went.
I never really cared much for running outside; I have no idea why. I suppose for the same reason that as a child I already knew that vegetables I’d never tasted were going to be yucky. I tried it a couple times when I first started running, and I think I also perhaps associated beginner’s aches and pain with running on pavement and roads. The treadmill seemed safer, there was eye candy, and nature doesn’t provide 10 televisions like the gym either.
But today, I just headed out with no real plan of where to go, following roads and open space trails, seeing areas of my part of town I didn’t even know existed (and I’ve lived in this house for 8 years). I got barked at by a multitude of territorial dogs. Met another runner or two along the way. Got odd looks from non-runners what with the way running tights fit, uh, certain parts.
And without the distraction of television or even my iPod, I spent most of the run lost in thought, mainly about the kinds of things I plan to write about on this blog. Fitness. Simplicity. Happiness. Health. Which isn’t to say I didn’t also think about things like beer and women and music, just not as much as one might expect from me. It was, if I may summarize the experience in the most trite way imaginable, very nice.
So, 6.5 miles later, I arrived back at my house. I think I could easily have put another three or four miles behind me, but didn’t want to risk too much too soon, coming back from an injury. I took Jeff Galloway’s advice and set my Forerunner 50 to an interval of four minutes running, one minute walking, for the entirety of the course (with the exception of getting stuck at one or two street crossings).
The training data generated by the Garmin software is over there to the left, cropped from the full display. It’d be nice if the mapping software was up to date, as the area I ran doesn’t seem to exist. I am pretty sure my house is not a figment of my imagination, but I’ve been wrong before. It would also be good if they would interface with something like MapMyRun.com and let you overlay your performance data over the quality maps they provide. Are you listenin’, Garmin?
Speaking of the Forerunner 50, Costco has them on sale still, now good through February 8. Well worth the $80 I paid for the HR monitor, foot pod, watch, and wireless USB dongle to tie it all together.
The formerly-injured foot seems to be doing ok after the run; we’ll see what the morning brings, but tonight I will preempt inflammation with Ibuprofen, ice, and New Belgium 2° Below Ale.