Race Car In The Red

To avoid the heat today, I choose to come into work late and run my key workout at 8:00 a.m. It was pretty warm, even at that hour. The workout: 2 x 4 miles @ MP w/ a steady 1/2 mile in between.

I was curious to see how I was going to feel. Up until recently, MP intervals have been hard for me. They've just started to feel "right" in the last workout or two. As I started out, I noticed I did feel good. Yay! I found a really nice groove at about 3 miles. I love it when that happens. I think that's when I relaxed. I was thinking about this documentary I watched with Leopold last night (DogTown and Z-Boys) about the 70's pioneering Zephyr skate team. Their whole thing was to just "feel it", to always be in the moment, not planning your moves but just letting them happen. Skating for them was an extension of surfing, and to be great you had to be relaxed and fearless. It was some pretty amazing skate boarding, for sure. Also some nice carry over to running.

Here's a very young (and very talented) Jay Adams:




So, back to my intervals. I'm into the 2nd interval, still feeling mighty fine, when people begin to appear at the park. Up until now, it had been just me. I began to notice that every time I approached people walking on the path, I would speed up tremendously. It was like, "Oh!Oh! Guy and a dog. Twelve O'clock!" Bam! 7:35 pace. Without fail, everytime I encountered another living soul, I became a race car in the red. I took this as a good sign, and prayed for tons of people to be on my true race course, cheering me on. I ended the workout feeling like I was so ready to race. Isn't that cool?

Also cool- The Asheville Citizens Times is going to run a Boston Marathon Preview article, and they want photos of Aaron Saft for the article. Aaron will be at our elementary school tomorrow, helping fit our kids with running shoes. Long story short, it looks like Aaron will be running with our Blackhawk Boys for the photos. Nice!