**** This blog is being posted at http://onceandfuturerunner.blogspot.com/ as well****
I know that today is supposed to be a “Freaky Friday: Bizarre things found around the Interwebs” – but I haven’t had a chance to surf the interwebs lately – and nor have I posted on my exercising for the last two days. So today is an update post instead!
Weds. was my “day off” of running (also known as a rest day) – I decided to take my kids to the local YMCA for the open swim. They had a ball playing – and I did laps. The one thing I quickly realized, is that laps are much more difficult to do as a 36 year old man, then they were when I was 12. I remember going to my swim team practice (the Ramapo Raccoons! and later the Rockland Dolphins) and doing lap after lap after lap – with no problems. Heck, I recall doing the 400 meter individual medley (100m each of Back stroke, Breast stroke, Butterfly, and Free-style) – and being tired, but not thinking my arms were going to fall off…
So at the “Y” I headed out and did 50yds of Freestyle, did my flip-turn…..and switched to breaststroke. Man, my shoulders felt it FAST (meaning that they got tired fast.. Not that I was fast.) I ended up doing a total of 900 yards – with 2/3 of it being breast stroke. Its kind of nice being able to pause during laps – and go play with the kids. It doesn’t give away the fact that I HAD to rest. This is the key reason I go to the open swim, and not to lap swim. I have been reading up on line on how “public lap swim” works. And it seems that a lot of places do a “Circle swim” – where one side of the lane (or double lane) goes one way, and one goes the other. OR they might have shared lanes where each lane is like multiple mini-lanes.. you touch the person’s feet when you want to pass. I may have to go during “lap swim” time – to see how the folks at the YMCA do it. Who knew that swimming was so much more complicated than running? <side note: anyone have any advice on the subject of lap swimming?>
Thursday I went out for a run in the evening, after Horace Mann’s (my kid’s elementary school) “Family Fun Night” – where the school serves hamburgers/hotdogs and has various bounce house type things for the kids.. By the time we got home – it was getting dark.
I strapped on my big ‘ol “foot-coffins” (that name for shoes cracks me up) and headed out. I had no idea what distance I was going to do, just that it was going to be between 3 and 7. I knew I wasn’t going to run one of “Seton’s” course’s – strangely I have had no desire to do those after writing about them. I did a nice loop that worked out as almost perfectly 5 miles (I had to run past my house for 6 houses to actually hit 5 miles). My legs were still tired – and it definitely showed in the last 2 miles – my splits slowed down noticeably.
Mile 1: 9:15
Mile 2: 8:45
Mile 3: 8:41
Mile 4: 9:02
Mile 5: 9:07
Still, not to shabby for my fourth run in 6 weeks. It brings my weekly total up to around 18 miles. Hopefully I will get a run in today and tomorrow and push that up to 30 miles.
I also have to say – jumping back in to running like this – my legs are sore today! Though it does go well with the soreness of my upperbody from swimming.
Advil is my friend.
I run, because I am a runner. Having realized that I have always "been a runner" - even when I went years with out running, I am learning how it has integrated itself in all aspects of my life. When I started running in highschool, my perspective on life changed. Funny that I didn't realize how much it had affected it until just recently.
Once and Future Runner 
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