Life of a Runner

Hello friends! As you can see, I changed the title. I’m not a college runner anymore, just a regular runner, so I thought the change was necessary. Anyway, I apologize for skipping a week; I was a mixture of busy and lazy. Now I’m back for this week, and I hope you enjoy it!

Monday

OFF

Memorial Day was a lazy day for me. Not really starting the week off well, but I couldn’t motivate myself.

Tuesday

4 miles, 31:30 (7:53/mile)

Tonight was a nice run up on the Garrison trail with my parents. It was kind of hot and humid, so I wanted to be a bit slower. That didn’t end up happening because I thought I was going slow my first mile and I was 7:30. Then I slowed down a bit. My legs felt kind of sore, which was weird because I took a couple of off days last week. I know I’ve been saying this for a while, but I really want this week to be a turning point in my training. I want to have something positive come out of this week. I did core after my run.

Wednesday

Morning: 2 miles, 16:50 (8:26/mile)

I started my day off with a nice run around town with my mom. It was just a nice, easy run. As much as I hate getting up early in the morning, a short run right off the bat is guaranteed to make my day better. It makes me feel productive and wakes me up faster.

Afternoon: 3.25 miles, 25:17 (7:53/mile)

Tonight was not a good run for me. It was hot, humid, and buggy. I also ate chips not too long beforehand, so my stomach didn’t feel great. Curse you, chips. I should have known better. It rained on us a little bit, but not enough to cool us off. The breeze on the way back helped, but the bugs were just everywhere.

Thursday

3 miles, 23:18 (7:46/mile)

I ran on the treadmill this afternoon. I was going to get up early and do a quick run before work, but I couldn’t get myself out of bed. I’ve been having problems with that this week, the past few days. I am trying to use the treadmill as little as possible because it is so hot in my room. I would much rather be outside where there’s airflow. But I had to get a quick run in before my dad got home so we could eat dinner.

Friday

Morning: 2 miles, 16:38 (8:19/mile)

I got a call waking me up this morning at around 6:30. It was Brett. He knew I was having issues getting myself out of bed in the morning to run, so he decided to help. Although at the time I was annoyed and upset, it was actually sweet and thoughtful of him. And it did get me up. It’s hard not to when someone is loudly saying, “Wakey wakey!!!” in your ear. Anyway, I went out and ran a couple of miles, and I actually felt really good and happy. One of my neighbors passed by me and wished me good luck on my new job this fall. Sometimes I forget how fast news travels around here. This was a great start to my day.

Afternoon: 4 miles, 31:20 (7:50/mile)

After work tonight, I went out and ran around town. It was great, and I felt amazing. It was just so nice out and the sun was shining. Not too hot and a bit breezy. I just wanted to sit outside for a while. So that’s what I did after my run. I laid out on the porch and did core for a while, then I did leg circuit a few times. Then I went inside, showered, and came back outside with a book and read for a while. It was actually really nice. I thought it was the perfect end to a wonderful day.

Saturday

OFF

I was planning on running today, but I was busy helping my dad for most of the day, and then my mom and I went shopping. We got a few things for my new house. By the time we got home, I was exhausted.

Sunday

Morning: 2 miles, 16:53 (8:14/mile)

My mom and I went for a quick run this morning to get ourselves off to a good start. We ran out on the highway. It was nice. We had good conversations and it was nice out. I talked about how people do that “marathon in a day” thing, where they run a mile every hour. It made me think about how many miles I could do in a day. I told her I wanted to try to do two miles every hour for a day, and I started planning out my idea. Mum suggested if I wanted to see how many miles I could do in a day, then I should set a time limit, not limit myself to two miles per hour. Sooooo that’s what we’re going to do.

Here’s the plan:

First of all, I have some sad news. My parents and I decided to defer our spots in the Schuetzen NEIN! (the 9-hour trail race) to next year. None of us are really happy about it, but we feel like it is the best decision for right now. At least we all get to do it next year, together.

Now for the plan! We’re going to do our own fake Schuetzen at the Garrison trail!! I know, it may sound odd because we opted to skip the real Schuetzen, but this is our replacement. We’re going out to Garrison on the same day the race was supposed to be, and we’re going to just camp out there for 9 hours and see how many miles we can run. Doesn’t that sound fantastic? We decided to use a half-mile-long stretch that we’ll run over and over again, in a similar fashion to the actual race. Except this stretch is mostly flat and on crushed limestone instead of an actual dirt trail. But yeah! That’s pretty much our idea. It’s probably going to be hot, it’s probably going to be brutal, we might almost die, who knows! But it’s going to be one heck of an adventure. And I am actually really excited to see how many miles I can run in a day. Now all I have to do is try to train for it a little by increasing my mileage.

My mileage for the past few weeks has just sucked. I haven’t done more than 5 miles for an easy run in a month or so, and my long runs have been nonexistent. So what I’m going to try to do over the next three weeks is increase my daily mileage and try to get at least two long runs in before the big day. That might be tricky, but I’m going to try my best. I’m not going to do any workouts probably, I’m just going to focus on mileage. That’s the plan.

Anyway, then this afternoon I did another run.

Afternoon: 6 miles, 47:10 (7:55/mile)

Originally my plan was to do 4 miles this afternoon. I was kind of tired and I wanted to just get out and do a quick run to wake myself up. That’s not what ended up happening. I felt okay about halfway through and told myself I should try to go farther. I need to up my mileage, so this would be the first step. I thought 6 would be good. I hadn’t done 6 consecutive miles in a long time, which is sad to think about. When I was 4 miles in, I felt pretty good and I told myself I could maybe do 7 or even 8! Then, a mile later, I realized no, I wanted to stop at 6 for sure. It was hot and I was dehydrated. Two things I really need to do: get acclimated to the heat, and drink more water.

So I ran 6 miles. It didn’t feel great. A lot of times when I have big epiphanic run, it’s because I feel amazing, like I could go on for miles and never stop. Or it’s because I am going really fast, faster than I thought I could. Today was neither. I simply gutted it out for 6 miles because I knew I had to take those first steps toward increasing my mileage. So 6 miles was my long run. It’s not anything glorious, but it is a start. And I feel really good about it this time.

We’ll see what happens this coming week, but I think it’s going to be a good one. Thanks for reading!

— Morgan