My legs were lively this morning. I ran the Levy Loop twice, with a half-mile jog warmup, followed by four, five-minute hard runs with three-minute jogs for intervals. I finished the fourth about a quarter of a mile from home. I ran the four miles in 36:34, with splits of 9:16, 8:55, 9:19 and 9:04. This was the best I have felt running in the morning since, I don't know. Maybe Oct. 1982, the morning I ran 17 miles in 1:51:30 with a tall, skinny, flat-chested, Pete-pretty, married blonde named Beth Walker, back in the glory days, before I contracted full-body cancer.*
And they were full of run tonight, too. I ran the Maple Street Loop, without looking at my watch, attempting to go at a pace I could've maintained for much longer. I did it in 18:45, with splits of 9:33 and 9:12, and felt like a runner instead of a football player made to do laps.
*I don't remember that time. I do remember that I ran 17 miles at a 6:30 pace (thus that time), that we ran by Beth Walker's house with about three miles to go and she quit, at which point I targeted a group of several guys maybe a quarter of mile in front way out west on Markham before anything was out there, and caught them a block or so before the finish in what was without question my best public training performance. I also remember a balding guy with a mustache going on about how fast I finished and wondering where Beth Walker went. I hurt my left knee about two weeks after that, moved to Fayetteville three months later, started smoking pot and drinking a lot of beer and never again ran nearly so well, except for a brief revival in 1985 when I ran a quarter of the Hogeye Marathon in a relay in 36 minutes (5:30/mile).
No comments:
Post a Comment