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Cold, tired

March 10, 2019 (Morning)

Exercise Type: Run

Comments:
I was looking forward to exploring this particular route for 2 weeks now, but I made a serious miscalculation about the temperature, how long far it was, and how tired it was. Actual, you'll be surprised to hear that for once I had overestimated the distance, not underestimate it, and thus instead of doing a crazy 34-mile run like last Sunday, I ended up having to add an extra loop around downtown to reach my weekly mileage goal (80 miles). As the for weather, it was in the low 50s in the city, but perhaps a bit colder up in the mountains where I spend most of the run. After exploring some tire track paths a few miles in, I met this nice Serb guy my age who told me a bunch of stories about the war, the wildlife, and working in the Republika Srpska. He showed me a couple of war trenches from the two sides that were only a stone's throw (or, more pertinently, a grenade's throw) apart, as well as some areas that had only recently been demined. I was having a good time talking with him and I thought he might turn out to be a useful contact point for future interviews with people in the RS, so I hung out with him walking around for a good 60-90 minutes getting thoroughly chilled in the process. Never really warmed up, thanks to the wind, sweat-soaked short-sleeve shirt, and increasingly-overcast sky for the rest of the run. On top of that, I felt very sluggish until the last couple of miles in the city. I think yesterday's hilly run has taken more out of my legs that I'd hoped. As a result, I didn't end up getting in the 6-8 miles of marathon-race-pace tempo I was hoping to. Oh well. I relieved to say this is my last long run over 20 miles till the marathon. I'm right at the point in the training where I'm very eager to be spending fewer hours of my day doing this. Of course, if I wasn't constantly running up mountains, checking the map, and getting into adventures, a 12-21 mile run wouldn't eat up half my day I suppose. Still, what's the point of just training if you're not gonna make it interesting and memorable. You could do it more efficiently, but then it really would just be a job. I like to be motivated by a goal like a marathon, but still have the work it takes to get there be interesting.