This weekend, long run, relaxation

This weekend encompassed will power, change of mind, physical exertion, hard work and it was very fulfilling.

Friday I relaxed and prepared for my long Saturday run. Not too much happened, just work and gardening.

Saturday I left my house a little bit after 8am, not eating breakfast or bringing along my water belt. I was going to run for about 90 minutes and didn’t really feel like bringing anything with me except the key to my house. Upon leaving my house I didn’t have a plan which is how I like it, so I just wandered around and went towards Stanford University, and then at that point decided to run to the dish and run the dish. By the time the dish came into view I was completely warmed up and ready for a challenge.

After jogging up the initial portion of the dish I came to the conclusion that I wanted to beat my personal time in the loop which is approximately 31 minutes (in a previous journal). Being warmed up, I headed left up the dreaded initial quarter mile of 30-40 degree incline. It really is quite grueling and unfun if inadequately trained, or just not in the mood. However neither of these are the case, I hadn’t ran for the previous week so I was well rested, and my will power was running on full charge wanting to conquer the loop in PR fashion.

I finished the rough introductory incline and proceeded along the fairly flat terrain for the next mile, a little down, a little up, basically just a resting period. The only issue I figured might come into play is that I hadn’t had anything to drink since I left my house (about 40 minutes at this point).

There was a woman ahead of me that had a pretty solid pace so I kept striving to catch up to her, which is basically the worst thing you can do while you’re running and trying to pace yourself. But considering that I was not too worried about pacing and just wanted to get my legs stronger I kept pushing myself to catch up. Finally after about 5-9 minutes I caught up and then passed her. She had a really good pace and I found that just after passing her I was really fatigued and breathing kind of hard. One good thing about training has been that I can recover while continuing to run. A little bit after this point there was a really long downhill portion and I just went after it, almost going to fast. I’m not really sure why I decided this was a good idea, but I was just cruising so I figured it couldn’t hurt to push it.

The downhill was wonderful, went by really quickly, but led to a slight exhaustion along the next flat portion. On the next hill I strived to push myself to an almost sprint, but that turned into hard effort for about 75% of the way and then a relaxed finishing of the hill. Then a slight downhill and then flat ground to catch my breath where I pushed myself a little faster but still in control. Finally I realized that I was almost finished and just needed to complete a really long and gradual incline for about .4 miles. I was determined to finish in PR time so I went as hard as I could for the last portion and ultimately finished the dish in 27:19.

Right as I was finishing up the final sprint to the end I thought I saw Becky from Team in Training, but wasn’t quite sure until I got a little closer and sure enough it was her. She was just about to begin touring another team member along the dish. I was utterly exhausted but I joined them on part of the walk up the left side. Again quite difficult, but relaxing knowing that the real pain was over. After walking down the decline to the main road I began my route back home. I was only about 7 miles into my workout, so it didn’t feel too exhausting, just that my fluid levels were very low and I hadn’t eaten since the night before when I loaded up on spaghetti. After about 3 miles I stopped at my friends’ house and made myself welcome to their free water and some really good bread. I hung out there stretching for a while and then kind of jogged and walked home.

The remainder of Saturday was spent doing various activities and eventually going to Cupertino to go bowling. It was pretty fun even though my skills went drastically downhill after the initial couple rolls. After that we made our way back to Palo Alto. On my walk home my legs were so tired from the running earlier, I decided it would be a good idea to stretch, so I did for about 30 minutes before sleeping.

I woke up today and went out to breakfast with my mom, brother, and 2 family friends. It was really nice, and the restaurant was fairly busy, but the food was excellent. After breakfast I did yardwork for a few hours and then went to baseball practice. Afterward we had some homemade pizza and then I moseyed around and here I am.

I’m pretty exhausted and tomorrow will include spinning and yoga.

Take care,
Ryan