Rush, Rush, Rush

ARGH! I'm so busy at work right now! And I have a total crap load of meetings too. Today was just one after another, and in between each, I was trying to get work done, so it was a real challenge to squeeze in a run. But it was also the first very nice day that we've had in long time. Clear blue skies. Zero humidity. A bit lower temp (low 70s or thereabouts), just lovely. So I decided to rush between two meetings and grab a quick trail run.

I ran down the opposite direction as yesterday and ended up on the "Rookery" trail, which is a very nice path with few obstacles that winds gently through the woods. Nice soft path, not too rugged, no steep ups or downs, so it's really a wonderful stretch of trail to run, the amount of walking that I need to do there is minimal, so I find it very satisfying. From there I rejoined the trail that this shoots off of, that brings one back to another fire trail, through a meadow and down another wooded trail where you can then choose between the "Ledge Trail" and the "Wetlands Trail". Today I selected the Ledge Trail which is hillier and more technical, but the shorter of the two. I took this to the end and over to the other fire road, upon which I did two sprints down to where it connects with the road. All-in-all I think I did about 2.5 miles.

During all this I had to wonder when it is going to start to get easier. I've been doing this now for a few months and while I can't really say that running feels all that much easier, I felt that maybe it has gotten just the slightest bit ... less hard (how is that for a pessimistic, semantic spin on it?) My progress just feels agonizingly slow. Ugh. I'm still so slow. I know that the speed will get a little better naturally with continued weight loss, and if I continue to work on running (and particularly if I do hills and intervals and sprints) that will help some too, but it's still frustrating. But worse than the lack of speed, I think, is how much that I still have to walk. I guess I should just be happy that I'm able to do what I can do and just continue with my routine. Past experience has shown that it takes me a long time to become the consistent runner that I want to be, I just need to learn some patience.

Anyway, so I managed to get the run in. It was very rushed and so not quite as enjoyable as usual for that reason. And my legs were incredibly sore before I even started (from running Monday & Tuesday and still from the weight training on Monday) that I didn't even know if I would be able to run. But surprisingly, I didn't notice the soreness while I was out there. I can feel it now though, oh yes, my quads are freaking SORE! But it's that good kind of sore, so I'm happy.