8 ain’t Enuff

Eight days of Augustathon down, a few more to go.

I’ll be honest – I was about to give up on Augustathon after Saturday’s run. Man, was that miserable. It was hot, it was wet, it hurt, and I was slow. I was cranky, and really, really wanted to throw in the towel.

Since Sunday, though, running’s been the bee’s knees (pronounced with a hard ‘k’ – “the buh-eez kuh-neez”). Sunday’s run was great.

Monday’s run was great – we headed down to check out a destroyer that had just pulled into the pier. Always nice to see a fighting ship of the line and happy sailors coming down the gangway for a little bit of liberty. Great run – really, really sticky but not too hot.

Tuesday’s run was cut slightly short (Still got my 3 miles!) on account of the discovery of a previously unidentified patch of blackberries next to the sidewalk. We spotted them on the way out. Amazingly, I managed to fight off the urge to stop and gorge myself until we were passing them on the way back. Klink kept going – said he would have been dead in the water if he’d stopped. I ate them until my fingertips turned purple. The last 1/4 mile I had to do wasn’t fun – I could taste berries and coffee trying to come back up as I pushed up the hill. But it was worth it.

Yesterday – same old, same old. HA! On Monday, we took Missy’s ma to a lobster shack in Noank. In passing, Missy mentioned how she sometimes forgets how nice it is to have the water as close to the house as it is. Me – not a chance for taking it for granted. Probably has something to do with spending a decent portion of my early 20’s locked in a steel tube staring at the sea and sun but not being able to feel anything but the skins of poor naughas and nuclear-powered air conditioning. No, Wednesday was another of what’s probably my favorite run – a loop from Ft. Weatherill on Jamestown. The wx was miserable – hot, wet, and still. But the roads are enjoyable, there’s enough of a hill to make it challenging, and a dip in the cove at the end of a hot run makes everything worthwhile.

Oh, and last night I got on the bike after the kids were in bed. Yep, got on the singlespeed and rode downtown to the pub for a couple of barley pops and Trivia night. On the way back home, I made it up Cow Hill without going into distress, which puts my fitness at somewhere better than it’s been in a while. Pleasant way to spend the evening.

Thoughts on a week+ of continuous running:

• Public commitments are extremely motivating. While I’m completely sure that there would have been naught but sympathy and support from the RBF if I had punted on Sunday, I didn’t want to have to type that I was a failure.
• There’s a “hump” anytime you push your boundaries. One of my vivid memories of Officer Candidate School, the 13 most physically challenging weeks of my life, was somewhere around week 4 when doing calisthenics while getting yelled at was no longer physically challenging. My body had accepted that I was not going to stop due to perceived weakness, and so the challenge moved to my head – was I mentally tougher than the Drill Instructor?
• There’s a strong correlation between temperature, humidity, and slower splits. Duh

Melissa still thinks I’m crazy, which, of course, I am. But she’s specifically referring to running without rest days for a month. She may be correct, but I think that in some ways the low-level, low-stress training I’m doing is sustainable on a daily basis. I’m hesitant to push my mileage above three per day until I’ve got no soreness at all day-to-day. But, there’s the New Haven 20K 3 days after the end of Augustathon, so at some point I’ve got to add some miles.

Wow – New Haven. I’m pretty confident that I can finish New Haven, and finish it pretty well based on the results of the Narragansett 10 miler. But, I’d like to have an 8 miler+ either the weekend of the 18th or the weekend of the 25th. We’ll have to see how the legs hold out.

Don’t forget the SPF 15!