I sneaked my long run in as I was feeling unusually strong. I was expecting to be spent after what I thought was a concerted effort at Saturday's race, but by the looks of things now, I could have gone out a lot faster than I did.
The tell of the tape was that my run yesterday was quite a bit faster than I expected. I had pretty much ignored my chronograph and heart rate monitor, relying instead solely on perceived exertion to ensure I was well below any aerobic threshold. It was a mind numbingly easy run. When I went to enter the data into my running journal I thought I had goofed somewhere because my heart rate was so much lower than it should have been for that pace. My speed was also much faster than I had estimated it to be.
Apparently my cardio program is working very well! I'm excited to find that even though I was much faster than anyone had expected on race day, I probably had quite a bit more to offer the distance than I showed.
I was curious on Saturday about this because I really didn't hurt during the run at all. In fact I was comfortably detached. I couldn't talk at the end, but I recovered quickly. If I had been on the ball, I'd have taken my heart rate through intervals after I was finished to see just how quickly I recovered, but I was too wrapped up in an unexpectedly fast time to give a hoot about anything except celebrating.
A doctor friend on runningmainia.com suggested that she had a similar experience after her first half marathon, but more delayed.
My life has been riddled with offering up the wisdom from countless hours of study and many dollars in books to help others. This is the first time I've been able to turn some of that research into something I did for the care of myself. Self loathing does not die without a long battle. This success, although very minor, represents a paradigm shift for me. It's something I've tried to display in countless ways and have been, until now, baffled as to how to make it happen. Self preservation has eluded me in many cruel ways.
I attribute two primary things to the change. First, I'm 46 and the hormone levels have likely begun to recede and second, the application of dextroamphetamine to help focus my ADHD brain. Irrespective of the source, the feeling of hope is now made of more than theory.
It's been a three year journey from hopeless despair to some sense of hope rekindled.
Physical activity in an aerobic range, continuously for 40 minutes, four times a week is a very powerful medicine on many levels. I'm grateful to have found it.
In my euphoria, I set out with Bonnie and Manon yesterday in the arctic cold to join Larua at the tall grass prairie preserve in Gardenton for a skate on the big pond. The area was doted with countless muskrat mounds and a gigantic beaver lodge. I've never seen any that were bigger. The pond had a skiff of snow on it which made us miss the glide portion of the program when skating against the wind, but it was idyllic in the setting at least.
Bonnie said later she had been watching Manon pull hard while running with the wind to gain maximum speed and almost cried at the beauty of the scene. Cat tails, coyote tracks and not a sign of humanity anywhere other than the ones gliding above the rodents hunkered down for the big freeze. Big sun dogs stood as sentry aside the low hanging sun. Ice crystals making fairy dust of the pristine air we inhaled. Not all days can be enjoyed in mountain top experience, but life is sometimes brilliantly loving in it's gifts. Yesterday while skating on the marsh, it was clear to us all that we had been at the right place at the right time to catch this one firmly by the tail.
Once we had our skates off and were about ready to head to the car, Laura asked if anyone would be interested in sassafras tea. She'd loaded an insulated bag with a thermos of tea! Laura loves to gather interesting roots and wild foods of all kinds and the tea was appropriately exotic. She'd collected the sassafras root in Rhode Island when she was last out that way and this was what the tea had been brewed with. It was also sweetened with a tropical leaf, but I've forgotten the name of that plant.
Characteristic of Laura's efforts, the tea was carefully crafted through years of practice to be perfectly brewed. Everyone was clearly delighted not only to be passing the thermos cup of hot liquid to warm our chills with, but with the flavour. Treats so well tailored to the old fashioned nature of the skate are a rare and wonderful gift. Laura has many special gifts and I'm grateful she shares them so willingly with us.
No skating today, just work and house chores, but the feeling of contentment persists.
Life in the slow lane.
The hopeless romantic.
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