runtothere

There is a spiritual saying: "keep your mind in hell and despair not" (Elder Silouan). It is one of those sayings that becomes deeper over time - the kind that Samurai/zen masters note: study this carefully. Always keep a grain of sand in the day. For pearls. I realized after my last post that I do the same even in my training, it is just that I have taken a zone of proximal development to my pain cave. When I began running after a decade-long break, I craved distance and would only get out to run far even though I would end up pretty depleted and in pain for a long time, both after the run and in the months after I began to run again - it is interesting how this did not deter me. So, my first step was to keep at it until my recovery improved. My new rule is that unless I am running particularly far, I must have no pain or exhaustion after runs. This also helps me note where stress is creeping in, to be ready to dial things back. Once I found I was recovering well from t

The days are finally long enough to go longer but it just doesn't feel like I am going that far despite the miles that are racking up. As a dogged distance 'jogger', I still don't understand how I continue to build muscle and efficiency on this regime. "It is better to be wrong than to simply follow convention," is advice given to the protagonist of The Power of One . When it comes to running, I flout contemporary customs involving speedwork and run my own runs, all of the time. Five years into my return to running I remain uninjured, running probably an average of 55+ miles a week (some are less, some are more). This was not a strategy, but the way to keep myself keeping on, getting out the door.* When I plan smaller mileage days, I find I want to skip them. And I have learned that I can manage going long even when cramming back to back (to back to back) long runs. Though not a strategy, it is demonstrative of the behavior of a type : the "endurance mo