Getting High

Ran my first road 10k.  Went well.  My time was 61mins so I beat my treadmill time by one minute. And I can rest assured if the race were moved to this weekend I could run the entire thing.  Chances are it won't though and I still have 5 weeks to train.  My current goal is to run it in under an hour.

Running on the road is an adventure.  (Calm down, I don't actually run in the road.  I'm using poetic license because "running on the road is an adventure" is more compelling than "running on the sidewalk is an adventure," because, really, how many adventures happen on sidewalks?  The whole point of sidewalks is to not be adventurous.)  So, anyway, running on the road is an adventure.  Tonight I dodged not only the expected doggy bombs, but also dangling spiders (damn spiders!) and an actual doggy who was overwhelmed when three other dogs on leashes and myself all coincidentally converged on him as he was detonating a bomb.  It happened too quickly to be scary and was instead only thrilling.  He really made a go for me.  His teeth snapped shut about two inches from my elbow.  Fortunately, the alarmingly thin teenage boy holding big doggy was just strong enough to pull him away.  I didn't break stride and I didn't look back. Nothing phases a triathlete!

The most entertaining part of my run though was the half mile after I saw a car floor mat lying in the middle of the road.  Baffling.  After seeing that I amused myself dreaming up the different scenarios that could result in a car floor mat somehow parting from the car floor it's lying on while that car is hurtling down the road.  Flintstone's car?  Irate passenger?  Alien abductors with a faulty beaming device?  Your guess is as good as mine.  My guess is it will remain one of the world's great unsolved mysteries.   

And the most interesting thing about my run, to me at least, was the last mile was the easiest.  I'm sure this is partly due to the way back being mostly a slight downslope.  I felt like a rock star booking across my imaginary finish line.  Also helping me out was the infamous runner's high.  I haven't had one so delicious in ages.  If you don't like running it's probably because you've never had one.  It's not a second wind, although those are nice; it's something more profound, more primal, more lovely.  If you've experienced it you know what I'm talking about.  It doesn't kick in, for me anyway, until I've run to exhaustion and beyond.  I think it's your reward for hanging in there.  And the harder you push yourself the faster it kicks in.  It's why runners run.  If you aren't a runner, trust me, it's worth pursuing.

So even though tonight I didn't have the motivation of trying not to fly off the treadmill, I did realize when I was halfway through and my body thought we were done (I don't blame her, we usually stop at 5k) that I was still 3.1miles from home.  Turns out that's a pretty good motivator too.

k