Hard run and 'Hunger Games'

Tuesday, April 24, 2012
I began researching my Ride Ohio bike route on the web site ‘Map my Ride’.  If you’re a cyclist and don’t know about this site…check it out.  It’s great for mapping out what you’ve already done to see how far you’ve gone, know the elevation changes you rode and to access your average speed.  It’s fantastic for planning routes, as well…which is what I’m doing now.  I’d done a quick look at the perimeter of Ohio, plotting the distance and was surprised to find it was around 1,000 miles.  Now that I’m actually looking for roads I would find safe and interesting to ride, I can see it will be even longer.

I had one of THOSE runs today.  It started out okay with a planned time of forty minutes.  I was running my South Chagrin Metro Park river trail which begins at Miles and River Road and heads north along the Chagrin River to the Polo Fields.  I reached the Polo Fields in a little over 22 minutes and after a short break to enjoy the scenery, turned for the run back.  On the short, uphill grade leaving the Fields, my legs felt like they were moving through Jell-O pudding…chocolate, of course.  My breathing was labored and the effort was a drain.  I hate that feeling…like I’m completely out of shape at a pace that would have given me the time to watch paint dry.  It’s down right discouraging and would have me feeling that way except that I know on my next run I’ll likely go a minute per mile faster…and feel great doing it.  I have no physiological explanation for this phenomenon and if it were an important race, I suspect I could have run through the feeling and come closer to what I’m capable of doing…but it just didn’t matter how fast I ran so I did what I could do.

Holly and I went to see ‘Hunger Games’ later that night and I must admit I enjoyed the film.  I’ve not read the books…but intend to now.  I can see why the younger generation has gotten swept up in the series and how it has inspired so many to take up the sport of archery.  The heroine makes me care about her and her situation from the start and emotional involvement is often how I judge the quality of a movie.  I want to be pulled in and care…it makes it so much more interesting.  And she’s totally into the woods and survival skills…my kind of girl.  Like everything I see and do lately, it also has me yearning for some time in the Adirondack backcountry.  I see a trip forming very soon.

Run Duration:  45 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 130 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 765.