Chris, I envy you your ability to run without the watch. I have to admit that I am completely the opposite for better, or infinitely more likely, for worse. Because I still dislike just going for a run, I find myself playing competitive games with myself for no rational reason. One of my frequent routines is to run the eight or so minutes to the local high school track, do 2 x 200 with the second one being all out, then running home. It's either that or run with a radio. So far my best is roughly 32 seconds with the running start. I do not anticipate improving on this significantly and it hurts way more than it should. But for some odd reason I enjoy it.
I've also been known to run a three mile loop starting from my house as hard as I can, for no other reason than the weird satisfaction I get from having pushed myself really hard just because I can. I like to time these as well, not because I'm trying to match what we did in college, but because I enjoy competing against myself from two weeks ago, or whenever I ran the course last.
The important difference between what I do now and what we did in college is I don't really care about the result beyond it being a sort of hobby. Thankfully, I know I will never go into some dysfunctional roast set off by my running fortunes ever again. That's probably where Chris and my approaches intersect. Running is just something I do these days, not really who I am. And yes, I'm aware that last line reads like it was taken from a Lifetime movie script about hoarding or taking in stray cats or something.
So there.
Great post Pat. I guess one of the things that pushed me into my current path is that I'm not capable of doing what you do. I know that my achilles would explode or I would get some nagging injury.
ReplyDeleteI'm very interested in your barefoot experiment. I run in Vibrams some, but always on a grassy field and never more than (I'm guessing) a mile at the end of a workout. It's possibly a placebo, but I swear whatever leg problem I'm dealing with that day goes away when I'm running in my Vibrams. So, it feels almost therapeutic to run without running shoes... weird. I haven't worked up the nerve to take barefooting further though.
Congrats on your return to running. I'm still struggling to get back to where I was in the Fall and have been battling multiple stupid injuries that prevent me from getting above 20 minutes. Somtimes my shins lock up around 15 minutes. Other times its a knee injury.
ReplyDeleteI think I also use the watch to play mind games with myself. I also get sucked into competing against myself. My specialty has year was the 1600. For absolutely no reason, I decided to start doing time trials and worked my way down to 5:53. My new running plan is closer to what Chris does except I just don't make it very far. My pace is around 9 minutes per mile.