“I Can Rock This” Run

Sunday when I set out to run, I had a vague notion of running straight out somewhere where I could later drive in my car and see how many miles I did. I always run for a certain length of time and only occasionally wonder how far it gets me.

I thought I would run out Steuben Street. I know it goes on for a ways, and there is a pretty good hill. I like to run hills. I know there are hills on the Boilermaker and I want to laugh at them. My usual Sunday run, up to Herkimer County Community College (HCCC) the front way, is a pretty steep hill, but I deemed it not so good to drive that way later. In point of fact, I have not run my usual Sunday run in a while. Maybe next week.

It was perfect running weather. Sunny, not too hot, no humidity that I could feel and even a little bit of a breeze. I crossed German Street with no problem (love Sunday morning traffic!) and headed toward Steuben.

And realized how far down German Street Steuben is. What’s that all about? This was taking forever! A glance at my watch informed me that in fact it was not. I distracted myself by looking at houses and other people’s flowers. Two nice hanging baskets there. I must get started on my container garden. I figure I’ll make a tasteful arrangement in the yard until the deck is stained and dried.

At last I was on Steuben. Ooh, that hill looked steep. Don’t think of the difficulty, think of how I’m building my muscles. Once I got closer it didn’t seem as bad. My problem now was the lack of a good shoulder. That’s one thing about the road to HCCC, it has a good wide shoulder. Luckily there was very little traffic.

There is a little sort of a soft shoulder. In the army if a soft surface offered itself, I usually chose instead to run on pavement. Running was difficult; I wanted each step to count for the maximum amount possible. That centimeter or so your foot slips back on a soft surface was just too much for me to deal with. An army friend of mine usually chose the soft surface as being easier on her feet. Today I ran in the soft surface. For one thing, my feet are bothering me since I need to replace my running shoes. For another thing, as I reflected this morning, no stern NCO awaited me at the end of the run demanding to know why I took so long (in point of fact, most NCOs I encountered in the army did not sternly await me at the end of runs; they knew I was trying my darnedest).

I knew there was a place to turn off somewhere along Steuben, and I intended to turn off, not merely turn around. I knew the place was there, because on previous runs I have run the other way and come out on Steuben. Naturally these things take longer going up than going down. Soon I was firmly in the “what the hell was I thinking?” stage of my run. I knew I could just turn around and go downhill at any time, but I wanted it to be a long run.

Where was that turn off? Was that it up ahead? No, just a driveway. Around the curve? Perhaps. I looked to my left through some back yards and saw the road I would soon be running down. The turn off must be close! Another driveway. A speed limit sign. Well, no chance I was going over 35 m.p.h. At last, I turned left and went downhill. Lovely, lovely downhill.

This was a quieter road. Still no shoulder, but no traffic either. I looked at some houses and envied a couple of porches. Another uphill stretch and soon I was going downhill at a rather steep gradient. I would almost rather go uphill than downhill when it’s that steep. I told myself to enjoy it, all I had to do was shuffle my feet a little and gravity would do all the work. Then my back started feeling every step. Oh dear. I know running is bad for your back, but so is being overweight, and running helps me keep mine down. Well, hills don’t last forever, up or down (and there’s a metaphor for life).

After a while my back stopped hurting. Then my right knee started in. Oh for heavens’ sake. Well, it wasn’t too bad. I got back to German Street and started toward my house. I had not run as long as I intended. The sun was feeling pretty hot by now, and I considered running to the spring on Lou Ambers Drive to have a drink. That was the way up to HCCC. I did not consider going there.

I soon decided to cross at Caroline Street, run down Caroline a ways then back home, for a total of 45 minutes. My previous longest time was 44, which I had thought to duplicate today. Then I thought, if I add 10 percent to 45 next week, that gets me up to 50. I could be over an hour in two weeks’ time at the 10 percent a week rule! Yes, I do the math while I run. It helps.

Lovely shade on Caroline Street. My knee had stopped hurting and my back was at it again. What was this, tag team? No matter, I was almost home and I was making my time. I had spent the latter half of my run in the “I can rock this” stage. I never reached the “I LOVE running” stage, but you don’t always. I consider that it was a good run. I enjoyed it.

These running posts tend to get a little long, don’t they? I didn’t even tell you all the silly things I was thinking of at the time. Perhaps for a future post.