It is with sadness that I announce....

Th rain is here. At least for the next 10 days. And that just as far as weather.com projects. Every single day: Showers. Showers. Showers. Showers etc. etc. etc. And it will probably be that way for another 180 days after that, as it often is here in the Willamette Valley. I resigned myself to this on Friday, and took full advantage of it on my 13.3 mile run Saturday morning run (to be addressed later). My intentions yesterday were to finish the recovery process from Saturday, get the lawn mowed, the garden harvested and taken down for the winter, the raspberry bushes trimmed back, pull a few weeds, pretty much all of the things I hate to do in the rain.

In the waning hours of the afternoon, as the clouds began to roll in and the temperature began to drop there I was, pruning my raspberry bushes (delicious, by the way- very pleased with how they grew in their first year) when a lady in full workout gear ran by. Content to take the day off for recovery, I didn't think much of it until I saw the huge rain cloud crawling over the hills to the west. The rain was coming. It would be here before morning.

It wasn't two minutes before I was in the house throwing on my gear, looking to my wife for the OK (she was getting ready to feed the kids dinner--I think) and sprinting out the door. The road was calling my name.

I started way too fast, but I knew I was only going to go 2.5-3 miles so I didn't care. My legs burned. My lungs were on fire. I was sweating profusely and getting cold at the same time. And it was awesome.

4 months ago I decided my goals for the 2.6 mile 4th of July fun run were a) don't finish last in my family (sorry Courtney) and b) don't puke at the finish line Since then something very strange has happened: I love to run. Strange things indeed...

Have I done any good?

At work the same FedEx delivery guy delivers and picks up packages almost every day. A few times, he's stopped in as I've been gearing up to go for a run and so we've talked briefly about what race I'm getting ready for or other various things. He used to run and then stopped. And then got into biking and then stopped. As I was preparing for Champoeg he mentioned one day that his brother runs ultra-marathons, and having just finished Born to Run I was pretty interested.

As he made his delivery yesterday, he says out of the blue, "you've inspired me to start running again. I ran 3 miles yesterday. I hated every step of it, but felt good when I got done. I'm going to keep doing it."

Have I done any good in the world today? Perhaps.

At the very least, maybe my FedEx packages will arrive a few minutes faster.

Recovery Time

It's now been two weeks since the Champoeg Half-Marathon. The recovery process has been a new experience for me. As I think I mentioned in the recap post, later on in the day after the race I felt completely drained of energy, nutrition, mental energy, everything. Sunday was a bit better and by Monday morning I was ready to go again. Mentally. Physically, not so much.

I finally ventured out for a short 3-mile run on Wednesday night. The first two miles were miserable. My knees and shins ached and I felt like I was wearing lead pants, my legs felt so heavy. I iced a few joints and mucles that night and felt alright by the time I bed. The next day I ran 8 miles (more on this run in a separate post), but still didn't feel quite right physically.

I didn't actually run again until Wednesday of this week, when I did a 5-miler from my office back to my house. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but something feels different. I don't know if my form is different or what it is, but even on short runs, by the time I'm done my calves feel like they are going to explode and I spend the rest of the day and next morning gingerly walking around. This wasn't something I had experienced prior to Champoeg. So I'm monitoring it. Lots of icing. Lots of stretching.

Nutritionally, I've been craving fats, oils and proteins the last two weeks. Three things I didn't care for or like to have much of in my system prior to Champoeg. This has resulted in more eggs, cheese, nuts and seeds being consumed and less pasta and fruit. I don't expect this to last too long, but it makes sense to me that my body is asking for these things as part of a rebuilding process.

So what to do now? June is still a LONG time away it seems like. An entire rainey-windy-miserable Oregon winter away, in fact. I knew I had a problem when I struggled to find motivation to go run last week (the day I ran the 8 miles actually). Once I was out and going I was fine. I've got to find some way to keep my runs interesting (new routes? shorter speed runs? hills?) and effective. They need to have some purpose. I'm working on changing things up a bit, knowing that the more options and variety I have, the quicker the winter will go by. I have to find something to push me, something kicking my butt out the door even if the weather sucks. I need some new challenge as the next step towards ultimately running the marathon in June.

Of course, there's always the Run Like Hell half-marathon in Bend on October 31st...