Long Run

Had the whole week off with intentions of working on longer runs and I have almost nothing to show for it except housework and watching some movies. Today was as good a day as any and so I figured anything over 2 hours would be good. The weather was a bit cold, but I still seemed to over dress. I never did hone the art of layering, so I was getting pretty wet about half way through the run. It worked out eventually as I made my way down Bells Mill Rd and onto Forbidden Dr. Not much sunlight gets through even the barren trees that make up the Wissahickon.

I felt OK for at least the first hour of the run. My pace was purposefully slow: I didn't need any PRs today. But after about 90 minutes is when the soreness settled into my quads. I had brought along some water with lemon, chia seeds, and honey (Born to Run) to test out and it seemed to work very well for both my mood and energy levels. I took the first half at 60 minutes and the second at 90 minutes in. Still, the quad soreness filled the majority of my thoughts during the last hour and I managed several walking breaks to ease the tension. There was a bit of soreness in my right ankle as well, but not where the pain has usually manifested over the past year. Good sign.

I made my way initially down the SRT towards Manayunk and was surprised to find it was almost entirely plowed, at least a runnable portion of it. Half way down this stretch I found a piece of paper attached to tree branch with the following Christmas Bible verses: Luke 2: 9-11. I didn't find it particularly profound as much as the act of pinning it to a tree. Someone found the time to make his or her way down here to do this, so I thought it might be deserving to read it through.

I finished in 2 hours 33 minutes (14.7 miles), which is a pretty slow pace, but with the several breaks I took, it seemed about right. As I made my way back into Conshohocken, I thought I could see the familiar stride of Brigid from about a quarter mile away. I lingered few a few minutes for her to get closer and was lucky that it was her, since I was waving like idiot. We jogged the last mile home and it was into the ice batch for me. If you haven't tried this after long workouts, it really works wonders. My legs felt fresh almost immediately.