I woke up to a phone call from my grandma this morning. What, on the surface, sounds like something pleasant enough, actually wasn't: her basement flooded again, and she needed help cleaning out the water. With all the rain we've been inundated by lately, this is starting to become a biweekly task. I threw on an old pair of running shorts & shoes, that I had put aside to donate but deemed worthy of one last job before passing them along, and headed over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go...
A simple system was put in place: my aunt ran the wet vac, I ran the water buckets up the stairs. The routine was akin to the kung-fu training process seen in The 36th Chamber of Shaolin: once the wet vac fills to the brim, I dump it in a 6 gallon bucket and trudge it up a narrow flight of stairs, then tip-toe through the house making sure not to spill a single drop, pour it outside, then by the time I get back to the bottom of the basement stairs again, the wet vac is already full and waiting to be emptied. It's a non-stop stream of motion that gives no respite, like trying to douse an increasingly intense imaginary fire by passing a pale of water down a line comprised of only yourself. I'd claim that it was a Sisyphus-like endeavor, except eventually, it actually yielded noticeable results.
It was certainly an unconventional morning, but it undoubtedly covered my strength training for the day. So while I don't necessarily recommend flooding your grandmother's basement for the purpose of exercise (or any other purpose for that matter, unless it's literally on fire; or she has given you permission to freeze it and skate around on), if you happen to find yourself in the situation, the 6 gallon bucket water workout is pretty thorough! Once we were done (about 3 hours later), my grandma treated my aunt & I to coffee. I headed home figuring that since I was already wearing my running gear, there was no point in putting off the 5 miler on the day's schedule for later; though I did throw on a new pair of shoes and dry socks before hitting the road.
Now, about the run...
It was rainy, but not really raining, which is fine for me. The air had that brisk Autumn chill that I thrive in. It had been a long hot summer, so despite all the drawbacks from recent storms, the temperature, as of late, has been generally agreeable. I was winding the bend on my 4th mile when I realized how good I was feeling at that moment; maybe it was the coffee my grandma gave me that ignited a bit of a spark in my step? I had assumed that I would be beat from all the early morning activity, but there I was bearing down on mile 5 like a Raging Bull. It was in that last scheduled mile that I began toying with the idea of continuing the run. There was something very appealing about this idea of going beyond my confined routine. I craved to put my feet on new pavement, and head in a different direction. You know, do something that would brush the boundaries of my running ability when I was least expecting it.
I grew up in my neighborhood, so there's nothing exactly new for me to see, but there are plenty of directions I have just never ran in before and thought today was the day to change that. Mile 5 came and went and I found myself loping over a bridge towards the far side of town (on the other side of the tracks). I knew, from my travels in cycling, the path I would take, which was basically running the long way around one of the many golf courses that places O-Town in the center of an obento box of greenery. Though I had no water with me, I wasn't really thirsty, so that at least took some of the worry out of this risky business. Part of me was worried that I would somehow break myself by leaping beyond the schedule Higdon so carefully created. The other part of me was exhilarated by how liberating it was to just shrug the suggested routine and go by my instincts instead of a chart. It even occurred to me that one of the parks I like to run at is only 4 miles away, which means on my LSD, I could potentially run to the park as a warm up, take a few laps, then run back home. This, of course, wasn't the plan for today, just pulling ideas off the shelf for future runs.
The way I ended up going was mostly an uphill climb, but I had expected that. I kept at it, and eventually found myself back infront of my home quicker than I thought it should have taken me. When I got inside, water was the first thing I grabbed, but then, after wiping off my sweaty hands, I immediately went for the laptop to retrace how far out of the way my new route went. Besides the initial 5 miles, I ended up reeling in 4 extra miles. I was expecting something closer to maybe half of that, so this revelation was a bit of a shock. I nearly doubled my scheduled run, without noticeably taxing myself any further. Now, lest you think I'm some rogue renegade with a wanton disregard for the rules laid out by the good Mr. Higdon, I embraced this added distance knowing full well that the following day was a rest day, so my legs would have ample opportunity to relax on, what is essentially, the runner's sabbath; which falls on every Friday since the beginning of the time I began running, roughly 2 years ago. It seems like every training guide I've ever followed leaves Fridays open to nothingness. This is ingrained in me so well that whenever I'm forced into running on a Friday, it always feels awkward. Which probably speaks more to me being a creature of habit, rather than any of the individual running schedules I've put effort into.
After shirking the Higdon routine that I've clung so steadfast to for the past 10.5 weeks, I realized that going beyond the recommended milage is not something I'll likely indulge in much more before the marathon—at this point, I've invested too much in the training, if I start modifying it with extra variables, I won't know how well it was originally meant to work (this approach is all very scientific!), and I also don't won't to risk any unnecessary injuries—but I am left feeling refreshed about the possibilities that running provides.
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