Falling in Love All Over Again

I fell in love with running all over again this morning. The past few runs I’ve not enjoyed much. They have been hard and slow and while it gave me a sense of accomplishment and reaffirmed my determination; I wasn’t enjoying myself much.

Even this morning, I was tired. I’m still flaring but feeling a little better. Getting up this morning was tough. There was lots of inner whining. Getting ready, I felt like all thumbs. Today, I thought I would try pairing my heart monitor to my Garmin again. It was an immediate success. More thumbs as I gathered up my reflective gear.

The dog was rather uncooperative this morning, running slowly directly in front of me. She also has not gotten the hang of the ice. We have more ice in the forecast tomorrow. I don’t like the idea of running on a treadmill but these super icy conditions might require it. Outside just feels so peaceful, especially in the mornings when so few people are up. It’s so still. It’s just me, the dog, and the road in front of us.

I ran with the intention of pushing myself with a little speed work. Run quickly between ice patches. I think it might be best described as a fartlek day. What is a fartlek? It’s a Swedish word meaning speed play. It’s an unstructured workout like running and then increasing your speed up a hill, or to the next telephone pole. There are fartlek workouts that are much more “organized” but it seems to me that it defeats the purpose.

And that’s where I fell in love. It was fun. I got to run hard and take it easy. I got to work around the ice rather than it be a detriment to my intent. I didn’t have the fastest work out. But I feel like this will help my overall pace. I have a hard time with short distances. I don’t feel like I warm up until after the 5k. My time didn’t really reflect how hard I worked, and neither did my Garmin or Runkeeper. But it allowed me to work with my conditions rather than be frustrated with them. It’s freedom.

Short post but I was just so happy to love running again, I wanted to share.