The last run of 2006…

I ran 8 km today in my last run of the year. You can read my totals in the next post. Next year I will do more, I am fairly certain. I felt really awful in the first 4 km of my run. I just shuffled along and I sometimes got lightning bolts of pain through what felt like the inside of my leg bones. The shots of searing pain were over in the blink of an eye and only happened a few times in the beginning, but I did not enjoy the first half of my run at all. I just shuffled along cursing and muttering to myself. I really felt bloody awful.

Contrast that with the second half of my run which, oddly enough began at the half-way point, ha ha. I just began running and I gradually but quickly began to pick up my pace until I was running really fast (I did 10/1 all the way from the beginning). I felt great! I don’t understand why. I can usually invent plausible reasons for damn near anything in the universe so I figure it just took that long for my cardiovascular system to open up and send more fluids to my joints and muscles. Yah, that was it. It just took 4 km to warm up.

Actually apart from the extreme of today, that’s about par for my course. It takes me forever to warm up. I am reluctant to warm up before my run because I am afraid I will have nothing left for the run so I always incorporate my warm-up as part of my run even during a race. As a result, I almost always have negative splits, which means I run the second half way faster than the first. This has often led me to compare myself with a “barn sour horse”. A barn sour horse is one (frequently found in trail riding companies) who has been trained by daily routine to recognize when they turn around and head back home to the barn and the oats. Some are so bad they actually break into an uncontrollable canter when they begin heading home, as opposed to a reluctant walk when first heading out.

So I thought, wouldn’t it be neat if we had a running club called the “Barn Sour Runners” whose goal was to always run faster in the second half. The rule would be never run a loop past your house, always go straight out at least half way then you have no choice but to complete the distance if you want to get home.

Anyway, here are two more photos I took today during my run: