Pride goeth before the run

Our patriotic flag courtesy of a local Realtor

Today's run (street): 5.1 miles

The route

Happy Memorial Day weekend. I kicked off this morning's run with a couple of bruises to my ego. My plan was to expand my route beyond my neighborhood and run in a nearby business park. I was five minutes into the run when I heard a cheery "Good Morning!" from a runner who'd come up and passed me like I was standing still. He was no kid either. I wanted to yell, "Hey, I'm slow because I have a herniated disc!", but he was already out of sight. Plus the fact that my slowness has little to do with the disc issue at this point.

A couple of minutes later, I detected motion to my left and saw a teenage girl pass me by. She was really moving, smartly sticking to the sidewalks for safety. I've developed a fear of our neighborhood sidewalks, whose uneven surfaces have caused me to trip a few times. This young woman gracefully floated by with no apparent concerns about that happening.

After those experiences, I resigned myself to jogger status and settled into my run. I crossed the middle school field that leads to a path to the business park. I hadn't decided whether to run one or two laps around the main loop because I'm still avoiding hills whenever I can. I went around once and followed that with a half loop before heading over to an adjacent neighborhood. The temperature felt even cooler than yesterday and there was a noticeable wind coming from the west.

Yesterday's run felt much harder, but I had run a minute per mile faster on Friday. I didn't worry about my pace (not that yesterday's was anything to brag about) and that made the experience extremely enjoyable. In fact, I felt I could run all day until I was a quarter mile from home and began to fatigue. It's been a long time since I've covered five miles and my conditioning  reflected that. Still, it was my longest run this year, if only by a tenth of a mile.

Until I am fully free of my injury I'll continue to focus on distance rather than speed. I've always found that when my base is solid, the speed will come. As long as I keep doing these long, easy runs, I should get myself back to a 6+ mile base by mid-summer. At that point I can decide whether I'm ready to think about performance and a possible late summer 10K.