Out and Back
I've been pretty slack at getting out. A few miles here or there, but mostly trying to take care of a lot of things that have piled up. Yesterday I missed a Saturday run to help Don do some work around his house, and when Cheryl mentioned that she and some others were going to do Maunawili I told her I'd be there. Well, I got there but about 15 minutes late, perhaps later, and Cheryl and the gang were long gone.
I headed after them and was immediately hit by a lot of tightness that had been building up. It took me miles just to be able to jog a bit. That's OK, as it is SOP for me, but I was not even walking fast. In addition there was a lot of debris on the trail and I spent some time clearing it when I ran into it. I started pushing in an out of the valleys that line the high cliffs of Maunawili and was expecting to come around a ridge and hear them ahead of me. It didn't happen.
I pushed on, jogging hard for moderate periods, but still no sight or sound of them. Finally I realized they were likely to be doing a one way, and that I might never see them if I didn't speedup. So I ran for a while. It didn't matter, and I got to the bottom with no sight of them. I'd planned on doing an out and back so that was no problem, but I'd hoped to get some water from them before they headed back up by car. Missing them was momentarily unsettling as I hadn't checked my water, and getting caught out on Maunawili without water is pretty nasty. As it was I had 40 oz, and found a water bottle stashed in the bushes. It was enough to head out with 80 oz, more than enough at the pace I was doing.
It was good to be out there. Good to have that time to myself. As usual, after moaning about things I settled down and started to figure some stuff out. Maunawili is always a place that I seem to come out of with a better attitude and some solutions in mind. Today it was stunningly beautiful. The ocean was a deep blue, the hills were a mix of rich greens, the birds were out, and the wild orchids were blooming. And it was great to feel that stress of the climb.
Got home, showered, ate a bit, sat down for a hour, and got dressed and went to work at Hospice. Dietary, so it is four hours and not that hard. Even so....I had trouble getting things done correctly and on time. It didn't help that the washing machine wasn't working correctly and I had to dick around with that for an hour.
22 Miles. It took an hour or two too longer than it should have, but it was a necessary first step back toward some reasonable training. We'll see what the week brings.
posted by M.N.Muench @ 12:42 AM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
Hmmm. Interesting viewpoint on the "suffering". I don't find distance running to be all that painful as opposed to track/hill work.
Distance running can indeed be hard, but when you walk all the hills and carefully monitor your fluid and nutrition intake, you can control your suffering to an amazing extent. Sure, doing ultra's is hard and you do suffer, but in reality...it's not something you actually do every day. You can have stiff muscles and joints, but you're generally on a gentle pace and things loosen and warm up. It's all...controlable.
Track and hill work however, is painful from the get-go. Track work is designed to stress your body, so there is no such thing as an "easy" workout. Hills aren't much better. Sure, you can slow down, but then you're losing the whole benefit of the workout, whereas in distance running, it's usually more "quanity" vs "quality". I've been concentrating on track work for the last few weeks. I'm *still* waiting for the endorphins to kick in. :)
And yeh, Peacock has a wide variety of side trails that very few people seem to know about. The (jeep) road that the Peacock course follows is not the original road that was carved through those hills. The old roads and connecting trails are still there and are a nice change up for the regular route. They're harder (more ups and downs) and longer...
-- Sean
I guess the suffering metaphor becomes clearer with age. ;)
Buddhist monks regard all life as suffering, and teach that suffering is what drives most human action.
I guess I was extrapolating from that idea with the intention of showing that there is a quality to suffering that effects human experience as well. (runner vs couch potato) If we must suffer at least we can suffer wisely. Anyway... long road is suffering, no matter what the pace.
aloha, mike
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