That Sunday morning thang!!

It was Around the Bay Sunday and I wasn't going to run it and I wasn't going to be a spectator/cheerleader either. Sometimes, as much as I love my running family, I just can't cheer. SIT DOWN... did I just say that? Yep. And it's okay. It's hard recovering from a year of injury & a year of cheering everyone else on. However; I got to the Spirit Catcher for 6am with my flask of oatmeal and sat on the bus and had my breakfast with my running family. Then home to get ready to go running. I was uhmming and ahhing about running & I had a pnumatic drill inside me drilling away - any excuse not to run ... but I figured what the heck. You're up you might as well run. So got to the RR and the usual suspects were lined up at the back. Theo had talked about joining me but as it turns out he wanted to run more than I did, so I was pretty much on my own. I had put my Garmin on it's thingy to charge, but at 11pm in the pitch black, ehhh... I wasn't so successful. So it was to be a seat of my pants day. I grabbed the 12 K map the Half Clinic had out. Seemed ok. nothing horrific - Out to Kempenfelt Drive, up Vancouver, up Johnson, and I like Johnson. If Crestwood is my Waterloo, Johnson's long steady incline is my Nelson. Steel, Lay, Grove, Drury, Wellington, Ecles, Innisfil, Tiffin - Lakefront back. A decent 12K. So I polled the fellas to ask where the half way mark in the map is - Theo folded it in half and said " looks about half" ahahah.. Dutch people. ppffft. :) Now I'm usually a pretty hearty kinda gal. I tend to have my big girl panties on, I subscribe to the sticks and stones theory of life, but one of the runners made a crack that my running was like walking. In the words of the great Cher " words are like weapons they wound some times". If he wanted to hurt me, just kick me in the crotch. It was like a knife through my mental instability of the day. I had to walk away. It was meant as a joke, but it was truly a hurtful choice of words. It did though, spur me to have a better run than I had anticipated. I ran all the way from the RR to Kempenfelt Drive up Vancouver, Shanty bay and ran Johnson all the way to Steel. Steel over Duckworth and had a break on Lay st. I think that was about 5 K. managed to pop my very last Halls in my mouth and took off again. My leg was feeling fine as far as my soleus was concerned. It's the danged muscle cramp I get in the calf. I could feel that as I turned on Steel, but it didn't get any worse. From Lay I trotted onto Grove and headed toward Drury. I could feel I was hovering around a 5;50 pace by my breathing - so I was most pleased with that. From Drury I turned onto Wellington and followed it along to Eceles and I was very comfortable with the run from that point on. It felt really good. I don't know if I was slowing down or if I had, as usual, come alive at the 6k mark. I always find it takes me to 6k before I am actually getting everything in order, the gait, the breathing, the song in my head ( which happened to be Delirious - by Prince... don't ask... ) I'm relaxed and everything is moving along well. Before I knew it I was on Tiffin and heading towards the Lakefront. I figured, 2k, you can do 2k. But I did have a quick break ( and I do mean quick) when I turned on to Innisfil. I kept the pace strong and the shoulders relaxed. My chorus playing over and over in my head. Arms moving, feet mid foot strike, minimizing the bounce, head up, shoulders down, Halls from one side of my mouth to the other every few minutes. CRUNCH... dammit... no more Halls with about 1K left. Bugger Bugger BUGGER. They get to that certain size that you just can't help but bite them. Ahh well. I brought Mint Halls with me for a change, but really the cherry ones ( no sugar added) are the best for the metholatim & keeping the airways open. I didn't even use my puffer today. Around the bend and out by the park - and stop by the lights across from Fred Grant Square. And from what I could tell by the clock on City Hall - it looks like I managed 12k in 1:15. so roughly a 6:10 pace. Slowly but surely... one run at a time. My calf is sore - but nothing a hot waterbottle and some downward dog can't fix. Until the next work out !