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Aaaaaaaaaand, I'm back

January 26, 2019 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Comments:
After 5 days off following my marathon, I couldn't wait to start running again! Yes, that's right. I felt the urge to wander out into the snow as early as Thursday, but I held back because I didn't want a repeat of last June. After I ran the Vermont City Marathon in late May of last year, I figured I didn't really need much in the way of time off because I hadn't been training seriously for it or put on a lot of mileage. But I just couldn't seem to shake the fatigue that continued to dog me for weeks until finally, I pulled a hamstring in a workout as was forced to take 2-3 weeks off completely. So this time, I decided to be a bit conservative and wait longer before doing any running, let alone long runs and workouts. My club director agreed - I still have plenty of time to get in shape for Boston, so, for now, I should just lay off the hard stuff for a few weeks.

The snow in Sarajevo falls every couple days, but it's usually thin and dusty, never piling up more than a few inches at once. I've never been in a climate that snowed so often with so little to show for it. It's not that the ground is too warm--it certainly sticks--it just seems that at the end of the day its been snowing for hours and not much seems to have accumulated on top of the initial layer. I guess it usually isn't falling very thickly--we've never had whiteout conditions or much wind. Today there was a fresh snowy carpet, but already the main roads had been salted a scraped clean, so it didn't present any problems, except on the side streets.

Today's run definitely had that "just when I should be turning back I have the urge to keep exploring" feeling (see the running-log forum for details). I set out to do just an hour in the neighborhood above PCRC's office's where I'd dropped off my stuff after running an errand in town. However, one thing led to another and pretty soon I was on the road to Nahorevo which I'd run two weeks before. This time, however, I'd managed to avoid the big hills and so I was feeling good and excited to see what lay ahead of me. On the way back, having crossed to the high road on the west side of the valley, I saw a road completely covered in snow heading up over the ridge. I decided to see where it went. As it turns out, it led to a spectacular view of the city (which I can only imagine would be truly magnificent on less smoggy days), though the heights for guarded by some very rude barking dogs which no apparent chain or corral. As I descended the other side I saw that with the right combination of twists and turns I could make it to Kobilja Glava, the very last neighborhood in Sarajevo on the road north to Vogosca, where I'd only run once before back in October. I made it, then began the long (mercifully downhill slog) back into downtown. In the end, I'd been out in the cold for over hours including some stops to look at the map, change podcasts, or take an occasional picture (I remembered only halfway through I'm trying to do less of that). Parts were fairly slow, so I'm guessing it was only about 12-13 miles, but still probably a bit longer than it should have been. Still, it's not a "long run" per se by my standards these days.