After two weeks of languishing in flannel sheets I'd decided on a new tactic: Denial. "I am not sick. I will not cough up a lung on the Bosque trail. I am fit and well and I will run, albeit verrrrry slowly and gently, on this beautiful spring day."
OMG, it was a gorgeous day. It's finally-sort-of-kind-of-spring-ish here in Albuquerque (it doesn't officially become spring until sometime after mid-April, when the danger of late spring snowstorms is past) but it's been consistently 40 F and above (4.5 C, for our International Friends!) which means that I'm all out of excuses. Plus, lets face it, temps in the 40's and 50's are just AWESOME for running.
I took a different route down the trail to Central (old Route 66 as it passes through Albuquerque) and back, and it was 10.36 miles, according to the route thingy in Beginner Triathlete. It goes past the south end of the Botanical Gardens, not that you get to see anything, but the path narrows quite a bit when you hit the south end of town so
there's less people on it. While I was running I listened to some older songs which provided my sermon for the day.Oh, You Can't Always Get What You Want...
When I turned around, I turned into a newly freshened wind which made me swear a bit. MOTHERF^&*#R, I hate wind. But all in all, when you consider the wind, and the fact that I haven't run in two weeks, haven't done a long run in three weeks, it wasn't too bad; it took me 2:33:09, and that's even counting all the times that I stopped and grabbed a trail marker and coughed my guts out (Now I know how my cats feel).
But, at least I was running. I heart my Sunday mornings at my Church of the Bosque Trail. I can mull over the week I've just had, the week to come, or just free associate and let things flow through my mind. I figure out a lot that way. I get a lot of peace that way. I'm not all worried I can't keep up with most groups for training runs. I like running alone. It's my "me time." You know, I hear that a lot, especially from women - that running is their "alone" time. When I'm running, I don't have to answer any questions, soothe any egos, make anybody feel better, or smarter,
or calm anybody down, or mediate any conficts, or deflect tempers.In any case, it wasn't as fast or as long as I could have liked; I needed to take it easy because I'm still getting over this, this, whatever it is - cold, flu, hairballs, who knows. But I got my "me time", and it was great.
You can't always get what you want.
But if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.
...
