Merry Day-After Christmas Eves’ Eve to you all!
Today was a pretty good day for me. Got up fairly early and fairly un-hungover (last night I was drinking Finlandia and Squirt… kind of a quick-‘n’-dirty Greyhound) and picked up my FlexCar for the day. I had a little bit of Christmas shopping left to do, and then I was going to run.
I had originally planned to run at the gym, but today was very mild in comparison to the last several weeks – in the 50s, no rain, no wind. Looking around I saw lots of other runners, and realized that it would be good to get off the treadmill and out in streets.
I called my nephew, Max, to see if he’d like to join me and he did. After finishing my shopping, I went to pick him up, then we went out on my 3.5 mile loop. We walked the first half-mile to warmup, and since I’ve been hoping to helpl Max train more, he set a goal of running without stopping to walk for at least 15 minutes. I figured that was an achievable-but-challenging goal for him, as he had to stop to walk at around the 8-10 minute mark in our last race. Hopefully, without the pressure of a race day, he could do it.
And I stayed with him for the entire run, and it turned out to be challenging for me, as well. With the exception of the races I’ve done in the last couple of months, I haven’t run outside at all. I guess I’ve gotten used to the treadmill and have forgotten what it’s like to deal with asphalt, and cars, and hills. But we still turned in a very good performance for a training run. Actually, Max did better than any race he’s ever entered. He’s a rock star!
I wore shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, my Asics, and no music. I did use my inhaler, and took an extra dose of Claritin-D for my allergies and sinuses.
Here’s my half-mile splits:
- 4:54.1 (04:54.1)
- 5:04.4 (09:58.4)
- 4:40.0 (14:38.4)
- 5:21.6 (20:00.0)
- 5:22.5 (25:22.5)
- 5:20.3 (30:42.8)
That gives us a 10:14.3 average pace for the run, which as I noted above is awesome for Max, and pretty damn close to what I do in the gym lately. I knew Max could be a runner! When I asked him about his time today, he said “I don’t know. Some days I feel like running, and some days I don’t.”
Truer words were never spoken.
Since tomorrow will be spent around family, Max and I might sneak out for another run, probably go downtown to run around the waterfront and the Esplanade. I know I’ll want a break from family stuff tomorrow… I love them dearly but… well, you know.