Running as Catharsis
by Robert James Reese » April 14th, 2009 » 6 Comments
I was originally planning on taking an extra day off today. My foot has still been giving me a lot of pain and I figured the extra rest would probably do more good than harm. Plans changed. I had an unbelievably shitty day – one of those days where you would just sit back and laugh because it's ironic how everything could possibly go wrong at once, but you can't laugh because it's you – and figured if I didn't get out of the house I'd probably have an nervous breakdown or something.
I laced up the running shoes and headed out the door. Without really thinking about it, I headed towards the East River and dropped into auto-pilot on my most common running route. The first mile or so, I was really feeling the effects of Sunday's 22 miler in my knees and ankles, but the kinks slowly worked themselves out as I went along.
When I got to the turnaround down on 81st Street, I realized that I wasn't ready to be done yet, so I hung a right and headed towards Central Park. I got stuck at almost every traffic light even though I was working my way up the blocks too, but finally ended up entering the park by the Fred Lebow statue after what seemed to be an inordinately long time.
The rain was coming down steadily, but lightly, and the air was cool and crisp. It was perfect. I opened up my stride, relaxed, and just hit this zone where running was easy and free. I was flying by other runners, catching snippets of conversations as I passed. Eventually, I hit Harlem hill, and I attacked it full force. By the top, I was almost sprinting.
I relaxed coming down the backside of the hill, slowing down a bit as my stomach's hunger pains were getting more and more intense. I almost never run in the evening and hadn't thought about the fact that it had been so long between lunch and my run. The whole bottom half of the loop was just very quiet, calm, running. Nothing spectacular, but it was solid.
I accelerated up Cat Hill, passing whole groups of runners and the few carriages that were out in the rain, then just coasted along back to the Meer. I stopped there instead of running home because I was so hungry and also because I didn't want to deal with any more stoplights.
Final numbers for my "extra rest day" were: 10.48 miles at 7:03/mile pace (including the stoplights, which slowed it down significantly). Wow. I needed that.
I laced up the running shoes and headed out the door. Without really thinking about it, I headed towards the East River and dropped into auto-pilot on my most common running route. The first mile or so, I was really feeling the effects of Sunday's 22 miler in my knees and ankles, but the kinks slowly worked themselves out as I went along.
When I got to the turnaround down on 81st Street, I realized that I wasn't ready to be done yet, so I hung a right and headed towards Central Park. I got stuck at almost every traffic light even though I was working my way up the blocks too, but finally ended up entering the park by the Fred Lebow statue after what seemed to be an inordinately long time.
The rain was coming down steadily, but lightly, and the air was cool and crisp. It was perfect. I opened up my stride, relaxed, and just hit this zone where running was easy and free. I was flying by other runners, catching snippets of conversations as I passed. Eventually, I hit Harlem hill, and I attacked it full force. By the top, I was almost sprinting.
I relaxed coming down the backside of the hill, slowing down a bit as my stomach's hunger pains were getting more and more intense. I almost never run in the evening and hadn't thought about the fact that it had been so long between lunch and my run. The whole bottom half of the loop was just very quiet, calm, running. Nothing spectacular, but it was solid.
I accelerated up Cat Hill, passing whole groups of runners and the few carriages that were out in the rain, then just coasted along back to the Meer. I stopped there instead of running home because I was so hungry and also because I didn't want to deal with any more stoplights.
Final numbers for my "extra rest day" were: 10.48 miles at 7:03/mile pace (including the stoplights, which slowed it down significantly). Wow. I needed that.
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