Struggle of traveling and running

When I am traveling, my running has to always be done in the early morning hours. Once the business day starts, I never know how it will unfold. I never want to put myself in a situation where I would miss my daily run.

There is also the difficulty of running in an area that I am unfamiliar. In the dark, all streets corners can look the same.

This is the main reason I stick to courses with very few turns. If I can get a course with no turns, I will take it.

Add on top of it, my runs all need to originate from the hotel. In the early morning there just isn't time to drive to some area where the running might be better. I have to deal with the area around the hotel. Good or bad, it is what it is.

Fortunately, my hotel here in Richmond sets right near Broad Street. I can come out of my hotel and turn right. The road just goes on and on. The first 3 miles have some good sidewalks. Then, the sidewalks end and the road narrows to just two lanes. One other advantage to morning runs, the traffic doesn't pick up for a few more hours. Most drivers spot my orange running shirt and move over to give me plenty of room. I say "most". There are always a few drivers that for some reason they believe in crowding me. Who really knows what is going in inside their brain?

Yesterday, I did my 10 mile recovery run and turned at the sign "1010". Interesting, the half way point of my 10 mile run would be at the route marker displaying "1010".

This morning, I need to crank things up with a fartlek workout. This particular fartlek is a pretty tough one. It's a ladder workout of 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 with 1 minute recovery. This workout is very much like a long tempo, but because it is broken up with a 1 minute recovery, I tend to run each interval harder than I would if I were running one long tempo run. Intervals 8, 7, 6, and 5, my legs felt pretty good. Starting with 4, the lactic acid in my legs started to build. The 1 minute recovery was no longer doing the trick. The final few miles of the run flatten out. This really helped. Also helping was the intervals were getting shorter and shorter. The mind can easily be convinced that it can handle another 3 or 2 or 1 minute(s) of stress.

Overall, I give my workout a "B" grade. Given the conditions I had to work under, getting in a decent workout is better than getting in no workout at all. Next week, I am back to the Dilworth Speed Loop.

 

Sharing one thought at a time,

The Cool Down Runner