Home Route Advantage

For the past 2 weeks now I have had company for my long Saturday runs. Last week my buddy, who got me running in the first place, came down and ran my route with me. Yesterday I went and ran his normal route with him. I discovered something interesting about running your own route than someone elses. Running on your own turf is easier than running on someone elses. I suppose this sounds like a no brainer, but for me I realized I was able to run my 10 mile route with much less effort than it took me to run his 10 mile route. Maybe its because I knew how long we still had to go and I could prepare my mind for what was coming next, I'm not 100% sure why I had a more difficult time with his route than he did and vica versa last week. This also brought to mind the 10K we did months ago. Because I had run a practice run the Monday before I knew what to expect for the day of the race and it helped me prepare my mind for what was coming. Life is that way as well. When we are prepared for certain events, whatever they are, we handle those situations better than if we are unprepared. However, there are many things that come up that we are not prepared for, but, like in running, as long as we are doing our best in training, we can overcome those obstacles when they arise. Like not knowing what mile we are at and continuing to run 6 hills in 10 miles (which was my buddy's route).

In any event, this week was a good one. I ran 4 times: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday morning. Monday was a 6 miler. Tuesday I decided I might need to up my weekly mileage so I got out for a quick 3 miler before work. Since this was the first time I'd really run back-to-back I don't think my legs were quite used to it. Even today I have a little pain/soreness in my knee and ankle, but after stretching and warming up that first mile, it goes away. I took Wednesday off and was back at it Thursday for another 6 miles. This one, was accompanied by rain. After 2 miles it started to sprinkle and then, a decent rain developed by mile 3. I decided to keep going as it was just a little rain. I was afraid we might get rained out Saturday as storms passed through Friday night, but by the morning all the storms were gone. So my total mileage this week is 25. That's probably my highest mileage to date. Next week we'll see if I can manage go up my 10 miler to 11. Only one way to find out. Gotta run!