I'd Rather Be Doing LSD

Rain was predicted for last Saturday, so I dressed to run long in wet weather. The group was supposed to run 14 miles, to recover from last week's 18 mile run. Since I raced a half-marathon instead, I thought I should do 16 miles this time.

I ran two miles before the group went out, then went back to meet them to find out where they were running and where the water stops would be. Good thing I did, because A., a woman I've run with before, was there so we started out together. She's not training for Grandma's so only planned to run 8-10 miles. It was nice to have company and she doesn't push the pace. For long runs I believe in Long Slow Distance and run even slower than my usual snail's pace.

At 6 miles was a rec center, (read bathroom) so we stopped there, then A. headed back to the club and I continued to Lake Harriet, which got me to 7 miles. The rain never materialized, but it was windy at the lake. For most of the run I was on a parkway, and the trees sheltered me from the wind. At around mile 9, I passed two guys running the other direction. One of them looked familiar, and I'm pretty sure it was Chris Carr from our local paper. He's training for Grandma's, his first marathon, and keeps a blog on his employer's website. I've never met him, but his picture is on the site. I didn't introduce myself for various reasons, but I read on his blog that he ran 16 miles that day too.

After my brush with celebrity, I continued on and tried not to think about how far I had left to go. I got to the water stop and topped off my water bottle with sport drink and chowed down some Lifesaver fruit candies. Heh, I took the red ones.


The sun came out at some point and I kept marvelling at the beautiful Spring landscape. Minnehaha Creek was running beside me and there were ducks and flowers. The battery on the CrapCam was low or I would have taken more pictures. I was so overwhelmed by the beauty that at one point I asked myself, "What are you, on drugs?" (Come on, I know you talk to yourself when you're alone. ...Er, don't you?) Like Itchycoo Park, it was all too beautiful. A runner's high.

There are many clubs out training for Grandma's and I passed the MDRA water stop. That's the Minnesota Distance Runners Assoc. and they offer marathon training classes. They had a bumper sticker on their water jugs that said, "I'd rather be Fartleking." That's when I came up with the title for this post.

My legs were still sore the next morning when I had to meet my friends for the Race for the Cure. The name's a misnomer, because with 52,000 people you don't race. There's a 5K run at 8 a.m. and then a 5K walk a 9. I always do the walk, because I do it with non-running friends. When I first did the Race for the Cure, I signed up for the 1 mile family walk, and I wasn't too sure that I could walk that far without stopping. That was around 1997 or '98. It was actually easy, so I signed up for the 5K the following year, and I've been doing them ever since. They hold it here every Mother's Day and it's very emotional. The women in pink are survivors and everywhere you see signs in support of, or in memory of, somebody's wife, aunt, mother, grandmother, friend. For myself, I know three woman close to me that died of breast cancer and two survivors. One of the reasons I run is so that I can hopefully stay healthy enough to not become another statistic.

This weekend we're scheduled for 20 miles! We'll be running on the Grandma's course, so that we can become familiar with it.