This week's long run got bumped from Sunday to Monday to accommodate a weekend away. That, and the rain came again ... it rained longer, harder, and faster than I've seen it in some time. I awoke on Sunday to thunder right above the house...and on the drive home the rain was coming so fast that we could barely see the cars in front of us, let alone the lines marking the sides of the highway, except when the lightning gave us a second or two of daylight at night.
On Monday it was time to bump up the distance to 12 km. It's a tough distance, in part because the route I ran extends into a second lap of the 10 km circuit I do, meaning the last two km have two sizable hills in short succession. As I'm running the hills, my stride shortens a bit and I lean into the grade to help overcome gravity a bit. My breaths quicken and the burn in my legs tells me I'm pushing myself. As I go, I remind myself: Hills build character. Hills make you stronger. Hills make you faster. (Hills make your shins sore the next day.) And I remind myself that the Toronto Waterfront route is mostly dead flat apart from the Spadina St. bridge near the end and the gradual rise from Lakeshore Blvd to Queen St. along Bay. Pretty soon, I'm at the top of another hill and catching my breath, my feet finding their natural cadence.
The last two km of this 12 km run were tougher and a bit slower than the earlier part of the run, but they came on the heels of a new 10 km PR of 1:10:10 ... Good to see that after a few extra days between runs. In the next couple weeks, I'm going to make the shift from evening runs to morning runs to get my body used to performing at race time. It's been nearly a year since I saw a sunrise from the comfort of my ASICS and I can hardly wait.
More soon...gotta run.
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