Ragged

Get out of here, he said.

Guess I was looking a little ragged around the office. The past few weeks have been more of an adventure than usual at work. A bunch of extra late and early hours, a grueling trip and an intensive new project.

Don’t know whether my boss was just recognizing my extra effort or fearing I was about to goof something up or even about to drop. Either way, I accepted his offer and took the day off Friday.

So how did I spend my time? I went for a long run, of course.

A glorious, no rushing through it, enjoy a run in the sunshine kind of long, long run. It was fantastic.

Parked the car near a local trail that runs parallel with a creek. Tightened my laces, pressed the start button on my little Garmin buddy and then headed off. Turned around at about 3.5 miles and made my way back to the car.

A few gulps of Gatorade later I headed for 3.5 miles in the other direction. I was aiming for a moderately paced training run. Really I was.

But as I pondered things going on at work and in the rest of my life lately, the adrenaline coursed through my veins, the tension rose and my pace inexplicably quickened. As I neared 13 miles after the second turnaround, I was only a minute or so off my half marathon PR time.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

I did manage to slow it down for a final mile or so of cool down at least.

It felt good to get a good run in. We had friends visiting from out of town and a weekend packed with activities so I wasn’t able to get out on Saturday. It also helped dump some of the tension I have been carrying around inside lately.

I paid the price for an overly ambitious pace, though. My legs were sore for most of the weekend. Only this morning on a brief 3-mile leg stretcher did they start better after I had the chance to work some of the kinks out.

Got a race coming up this Sunday. A four miler that ends on the Country Club Plaza. Then of course we’ve got Nancy’s 10 on the 10th coming up. I’ve also been getting excited about the Hospital Hill Half Marathon in June. Still trying to figure out what I might want to do in the fall.

A little racing and a lot of running should bring my fall plans into greater focus.