Week 25: Beating the boredom

Only five weeks until the marathon, and our runs are increasing in both time and distance. One of the minor issues I have been dealing with lately is boredom (and I certainly am not implicating Chris here---he puts a lot of effort into keeping our runs fun and entertaining, and I could not do this without him).

We live in a small town, so we do not have many (or any) large parks with jogging paths, dedicated bike/pedestrian lanes, or even sidewalks--and the ones we do have are often not in the best shape. Many roads do not have decent shoulders, and at the same time, are heavily used by trucks; speed limits on some of these "residential" streets exceed 35 or 40 MPH. We also live in a moderately hilly area, which presents another challenge to our training. So when I am planning our routes, I try to take into account our safety first and foremost, as well as wear and tear on our bodies---some hill training is important and necessary, but it is not something you need or want to do every day!

So we have our tried-and-true safe routes, but at this point they are all getting old and stale, especially when you factor in that we have, for example,  four different 3-milers, which is great....but then our 6-miler is two of those routes combined, and our 9-miler is 3 of those put together, and the 12-miler is all four mashed up. Technically they may be "different routes" but really we are covering the same ground over and over again.

That's why it's wonderful when we can mix it up a little and get out of Dodge, especially for our long runs. It isn't always possible as some weekends Chris is on call and has to stay close to home, but this past weekend we were able to check out a fantastic new trail about 30 minutes away. It was completely revitalizing to run somewhere new and check out some unfamiliar scenery, especially over 18 long miles. Unfortunately, our 20 mile run (coming up in two weeks) has to be in town; this will be the ultimate route mash-up with a few unavoidable big hills---including my nemesis hill that I have yet to conquer--but we will walk them if we have to!

Weekly stats:

Mon    9/17      4.03 miles in 42:26

Wed    9/19       8.74 miles in 1:31:14 (this was supposed to be a full 9 but we had to get home in a hurry)

Thu     9/20       5.03 miles in 53:01

Sat       9/22      17.64 miles in 3:25:00  (this was supposed to be a full 18 but we missed a mile marker and so cut it short a bit. Also we walked 1/2 mile at mile 16, but ran the last mile in strong....this is what we call "good enough"!)

Total miles:      35.44

Quick fundraising update:  we are now up to $1547 raised for Fisher House---thank you!