I knew I needed a real test to determine the odds of my running 57 minutes as part of my 57/57/57 birthday triathlon in two weeks. I’d done 30 minutes on my previous run without calf pain, but did have considerable pain just walking around the next day. For today’s run, I decided to push it…go for at least 40 minutes and find out where I stood.
I planned my course to be on my favorite trails as a tribute to the life of ‘Born to Run’ character, Micah True, who died running a trail in Gila National Forest at the age of 58 this past weekend. I started the run imagining how the Tarahumara people and ultra runners like Micah run up to 100 miles at a time on trails that make the roughness of my Metropark paths look like…a walk in the park. Still…it’s what I have and 40 minutes is what I can do right now.
I ran twenty minutes thinking about my calf, but completely enjoying the perfect, sunny and cool evening. The conditions could not have been better for a run and the trails were completely dry…something I haven’t been able to say for over a year. I could see the deep blue of the sky through the budding trees and hear the constant thumping of Pileated Woodpeckers in the trees as I passed. By thirty minutes I was sure that nothing would mar this day and I would be completing forty minutes unscathed. In fact, as I approached the car, my watch moved to 41:00. I stopped and stretched a calf that felt strong and healthy again though I will baby it over the next two weeks so as to be ready for the triathlon.
Jack and I went out for his first driving lesson. I drove to the high school parking lot, gave him some instructions, and exited the car to switch spots with him. When he climbed into the driver’s seat, his first question gave me pause.
“What gear is it in?”
I looked at him to determine if he was serious he was. He looked serious. “What gear do you think it’s in when both of us are outside of the car and it’s not moving?”
“Umm…park?”
He scares me sometimes. We did some driving in an almost empty parking lot as he got his first taste of maneuverability and found it was a little tougher than he thought. As with most new drivers, he seemed to be afraid of the curbs and spent his time running down the middle of the lane. I warned him of this, so when we came to another turn, he slowed to ask another question.
“Can you see the curb over there?”
I looked to him and said, “more importantly…can YOU see the curb over there?”
He figured out that he wouldn’t be able to rely on me for the placement of curbs and that either he’d have to see them…or run into them. When he rolled through his second stop sign, he announced himself ready for the road.
“You aren’t driving out of this parking lot while you’re still rolling through stop signs. Just because I do it doesn’t mean you can. You’ll fail your driver’s test every time if you do that. We’ll try the road on our next lesson,” I said.
Holly has let me do all the driving instruction with the kids and has no intentions of letting that change anytime soon. And John is the one with the ulcers…
Run Duration: 41 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 130 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 700.
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