Taking stock of progress

I'd been worried about my running lately.

I sometimes get hard on myself, questioning if I'm doing all I can to improve. My diet slips (sometimes, a lot), and I know that such lapses can have an impact on my running. So while those cookies taste amazing, when I run that evening and fail to improve on my times, I have this internal battle over whether or not it was my fault.

You can see how this sort of mentality would be problematic. I try to be forgiving, but boy, nothing validates training like improvement.

Fortunately for my ego, this week has brought plenty of improvement. Finally.

Each weekend, I go for my long run. Last Saturday's was good, five miles that I accomplished on the treadmill in 1:05:04. My best time for a five yet, though I'm really angling to break an hour. It'll get there!

Sunday, I did my tempo run. A tempo run is meant to be comfortably hard, a stronger push than a long run. I chose to do this by starting at a faster speed, then dropping it ever so slightly after I tired. I didn't want to do intervals - I save those for my speed days, the hard running alternated with recovery walking - so I hoped that easing the speed ever so slightly as needed would help to keep my effort high.

And it worked! I pulled my fasted mile yet, finishing in 10:30 on the nose. After a walk break, I finished out my second mile, barely. A good, strenuous run.

Monday was legs, as detailed earlier, which took me out of commission for most of the week. I managed some moderate intervals on Thursday night and put in a solid workout, but it was just that - a workout. Nothing to write home about.

And so yesterday, it was time for another long run. It was the ideal day for it, overcast and breezy with a very light, very intermittent sprinkling of rain. With the weather delivering exactly what I needed, I chose the trails instead of the treadmill.

It was time to try my first six-miler.

I set out on a familiar route, the one I took on my first long run, taking the turns I hoped would lead me to six miles. The track around the inside of the park was nice enough, but as I crunched over the gravel pathways, I was already fantasizing about the grassy trails outside the fences.

It's hard to explain exactly how perfect the run was. Everything just made sense, from the color of the sky to the temperature of the breeze. By the time I turned out the gate to the nature preserve, my iPod had left Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme and launched into Haydn's Cello Concerto No. 1. I jogged through the loop to Grieg's Peer Gynt, pounding across a field as our hero entered the hall of the Mountain King.

And it had just begun to rain when Vaughan Williams' Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus started, a piece that I find somehow emotionally overwhelming. One of the first times I remember listening to it, in high school, it was pouring rain outside. Ever since then, the piece reminds me of rain.

Pretty fantastic coincidence, if I do say so myself.

Anyway. I had been running for an hour (well, run/walking, as you all probably know by now) and I was still feeling fresh. Happy, even.

Free.

And there, in that instant, I was reminded of why I do this. The numbers are great, the struggle builds an abundance of character. But this feeling of pure, unmitigated freedom makes every last drop of sweat, every difficult tempo run, every muscle cramp worth it. Those lead to this. They make it possible.

The feeling didn't last forever, of course. Around mile five, my body said "Excuse me, isn't this when you usually stop?" The final mile was lethargic, done out of necessity because I was off in the woods all alone. I pushed myself, wanting to meet my goal of 1:30 for the six, unwilling to ruin the magic by checking my progress to see if it was even possible.

Clocks are good at ruining magic.

As I reached the end of the trail, I pulled out my phone to check RunKeeper. And I laughed out loud.

5.99 miles in 1:29:40. Of course.

I decided right then to exercise a point of privilege. I work hard, damn it, and for my purposes, I did six miles.

Besides, I rationalized, I did start the app a little late. Surely I missed a hundredth of a mile.

So there we have it. Records set, goals met, and a practically transcendental run in the woods completed. These things, they don't happen on their own. They don't happen by chance. They happen with methodical, patient work. And that's why I do it.

The next time I hit a progress wall, I would do well to remember this.