Tuesday, February 19, 2008

The Best Laid Plans of Rodents or Runners - John

This week, the classic poem from ninth grade “To a Mouse” comes to mind: “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men Gang aft agley”.

I was intending to run three to four days this week plus a long run over the weekend with my friend Jimmy. However, I woke up Monday morning quite sore and tired from the half marathon of the weekend. I was quite discouraged until I recalled that I sometimes needed two days off after long runs when the distance spanned into the teens.

So, Monday and Tuesday were a wash. I woke up Wednesday ready to go. However, the weather was quite difficult. I have found after my gastric bypass the worst weather for me is cold rain (around 30ish degrees). My discouragement mounted, as I recalled how the cold rain really wrecked me last year at the Boston Marathon, and it really took close to 12 weeks to recover fully from that ordeal. As the weather worsened all day, my mood soured and was topped off with needing to attend the wake of my friend and occasional running partner, Jimmy’s father-in-law. I just crossed Wednesday off.

I woke up Thursday quite fresh and with a better attitude. The weather was excellent, and I decided to give myself a Valentine present. I laced up my shoes, gathered my iPod, and headed out for a relaxed 10-mile run. Friday ended up nice as well, so I took Molly out on our regular route.

Jimmy called me and was ready to take a longer run. I was hoping I could talk him into 14 on Sunday, but we settled for 10 on Saturday. On Sunday, he was using his car to pace our friend Mike for his 13-mile run. Mike is also running Boston; however, our training plans and speed are too diverse to train together.

Although I did not stick to the plan, I was able to get a decent amount of mileage “in the bank.” This week’s experience is making me consider the possibility of adding a mid -week 10 miler every other week for the rest of this month.

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