On Sunday I had a 12k trail run on my program. I figured I should at least do 10k, and hopefully a bit more. I managed to convince a woman I had just met to join up with me. She mentioned she was a runner and within minutes I was sidling up to her like a cat eyeing a mouse. "So, you're a runner? Have you ever run on trails? Interested in a short run on Sunday morning before church?"
Since no one from my running group was willing or able to join me, I was feeling a little desperate to find someone. Ever since I started running with people, I've realized how much - for me - it sucks to run alone. As in, all motivation flies out the window and I'm lucky if I get past the doorway for a slooooowww jog.
But fortunately said woman was keen and we made plans to meet up Sunday morning.
If I hadn't felt stiff on Saturday post-run, I certainly wasn't feeling limber enough to want to run 12k of trails on Sunday!
We started off at an easy pace. Unfortunately, as Mt Coot-tha parking lots can be tricky to find for those not certain where they're going, the best landmark to find is the summit parking lot. Which means we started our running by going down, down, down. And down some more. Personally, I always prefer to start by going up!
We went down to the bottom of the mountain and back to the summit in just under 5k. Being the runner that she is, my friend insisted she run a bit more with me just to make it an even 5k.
After about 45min we hit the 5k and she took off to get her family up and out of bed (as previously planned) while I turned around and hit a different trail.
Oooh, this one was hard! Going down that second time was just depressing. Especially with no one to run with. And, as luck would have it, the second time down I haphazardly picked a trail sooo steep that I had to walk slowly going down else risk sliding on my butt down the dirt track.
I got to the bottom and when I looked back up I saw...
Okay, maybe nothing that bad, but it sure felt like it! I jogged on a flat trail for a few minutes to gather my willpower to climb back up the hill. This time, I had only gone halfway down Mt Coot-tha rather than back to the bottom. I know I should've gone back down to make it a full 10k.
But I had no willpower left. It was all I could do to get back up that one steep hill. I couldn't even run it the whole way. I instead picked evenly distanced landmarks to do a 1:1 walk:run ratio going back up.
I made it.
7.5k down, 2.5k to go to hit my 10k mark.
But I just couldn't do it. I was so tired, so alone, and so lacking willpower. That is something I will have to work on.
No statistics on this run. Let's just say I did 7.5k, it took me about 75min (including rest breaks and view point breaks) and that it was an elevation gain of +300m.
28.7k race coming up on September 23rd! In six weeks I need to get strong enough to go almost 4x the distance as I did yesterday.
Yikes.
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