August 22nd, Monday,  5:00 p.m.

On a shady back road in Jackson

“Manifesting enhanced fluidity”   This is a pretty cool phrase that I dreamed up today while running and trying to work on improving my vocabulary used for describing good running.  It in no way describes how I ran my 5 miler today.  I was going to save it for the title of a future post, but I decided that I would probably forget it if I didn’t write it down today.  In an article that I read when I first started posting by a fellow who had been posting for 10 years, one of the suggestions he made was to aways say what you’re thinking right away, don’t save it, because you will probably never use it.  Anyhow, this phrase came to mind today about three and a half miles into the run.  I had convinced myself that I needed to do a long aerobic run because my recent training has been lacking that particular type of workout.  So I set as a goal to run a 4 mile Loop without any stopping.  That sounds pretty modest by standards of three months ago before I was injured, but I had done little of that kind of work since I restarted training July 1st. The beginning of the run was very uncomfortable, and I struggled with myself throughout to keep from actually stopping. I was just determined to complete the format without stopping even if I had to run    12:00+ miles. So I struggled on. As I turned a corner to start up a long gradual one mile hill just past the 3-mile mark, everything changed. All the aches disappeared, my breathing became more relaxed and steady, and I begin to “manifest enhanced fluidity.” LOL   at that point I decided to make my 4 miler a 5 miler. The enhanced fluidity did not manifest itself for very long.  But I was determined to prove to myself that I was mentally tough enough to survive a struggle laden 5 miles.  So, I finished the 5 feeling the most fatigued and drained as a result of any workout since I started running again.  I hope this was not a Pyrrhic victory.  (You can look that up.)

Stats –

I-Mad – 0

A.m.HR – 50BPM  – Low

Sleep – 8.5 hours

Weight – 150#  after run    Down 6# in 4 days,   Mega veggies!

Workout – 5 exhausting miles  in 59:39