July 29th,  Friday,  4:00 p.m

The song;

“Happy Trails”    This song came to mind today as I was thinking about a way to describe my run. And it does describe him how I felt about my run today. But immediately a flood of memories came back, really fond memories. So if you’re planning to read this entire blog today, you might want to grab a beverage and relax.  I am feeling quite loquacious this afternoon.  The picture I have in my head is of the O’Rourke family of six sitting in front of the TV set on Lexington Avenue back in the 1950s.  My Dad  and Mom loved the “Roy Rogers Show” and  loved to listen to him singing Happy Trails after saving the good guys from the bad guys every week because it made everybody feel happy and, I think, safe.  Those were times when I believe most of us felt pretty safe. But a week never passed in the O’Rourke household without the family gathering to watch the “Roy Rogers Show.” Those were the days when TV was our social media. I always think about Mom and Dad when I hear that song.

 The run;

Because the temperature was in the 70s today,  jumped at the chance to go for a long run in midday.  I set out on my 4-mile loop with the goal to allow my body to dictate the pace at which I would run. Yes, at this point a four mile run is my long run.  It was comfortable, and each mile became faster.  Along the way I came up with a phrase to describe for me this type of running, which I labeled Comfortably Cruising (CC).   It turned out that was somewhere between 10 and 11 minutes  per mile when I checked my watch.   It occurred to me that a few months ago I had created a similar type of expression to describe a different kind of running that I had labeled Comfortable Quality  (CQ).   (I do love to write in the Past Perfect Tense.) That as I remember was a pace of between 8:45 and 9:15 per mile.  As I frequently do while I am running these days, I was thinking about sharing my new phrase with my readers. It then occurred to me about my previous phrase and the similarity that the two have is the word comfortable.  I started thinking about that concept of comfortable and what it really meant to me. This is what I concluded.  The word comfortable in both cases is not meant to indicate a measure of effort.   It is a measure of body mechanics and breathing.  Am I running with mechanical efficiency and relaxed breathing?   I frequently told my athletes while I was coaching High School to be mindful of the comments of casual track fans at major track meets as we sat in the bleachers watching.  We would frequently hear folks say to one another how amazing it was that the winner didn’t look like he was trying very hard. They were describing precisely what I’m talking about, mechanical efficiency and relaxed breathing.  It is what separates the great runners from the rest of the field. Witness the recent USA Olympic trials.  The not very astute announcers frequently commented that Galen Rupp, Matt Centrowitz, Bernard Lagat, Emma Coburn and Molly Huddle were winning with ease. But they were exerting as much effort as anyone else in the race.  Only they have mastered through years of intensive training the Art of doing it comfortably.  So I will continue  my quest to become the most comfortable runner while training  for quality, cruising or racing.

Stats –

I-Mad – 0

a.m.HR – 56 BPM

WEIGHT – 152#

SLEEP – 6.5 HOURS       NEED NAP!

WORKOUT – 4 MILES in 47:34  – final 3 in 33:02

14:32,  11:38,  10:42 & 10:42    (CC)