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Stars! In Your Multitudes!

March 30, 2019 (Night)

Exercise Type: Run

Comments:
Went for a run under the staaaarrrrrrrs! I started off just jogging around my neighborhood up in the hills overlooking Sarajevo, wrestling with whether I wanted to do a 3-mile run or a 16-mile run. I realize this is not the kind of question most of you grapple with. Generally, my long runs are either planned or start out as medium runs where I get carried away with my explorations, but tonight I was feeling conflicted. I had planned to do my long run Sunday like I almost always do, but after getting home from a long day of driving around eastern Bosnia doing interviews about cross-ethnic friends during the war, I realized I had no plans for the evening and several hours free, whereas my translator and her boyfriend had just invited me over to dinner on Sunday. Seeing as I plan to be out doing interviews all day tomorrow as well, and I'm already short on sleep, there really didn't seem to be a good time on Sunday to squeeze in a two-hour run. On the other hand, my body was feeling a bit beat up from only sleeping 4-hours last night and thus not fully recovering from yesterday's hip strengthening routine, plus the tendons in the back of my right knees were hurting a little bit for the first time. You see my dilemma. I finally came to a decision by charging up some hills for the fun of it and subsequently realizing they were gonna make me feel sore tomorrow so if I wanted to do my long run feeling relatively fresh it had better be now. Oh, the perverse logic of a dedicated distance runner...

Once I finally committed to doing a full 16-miles, my body seemed to perk up a bit, or rather, I realized how perky I'd been feeling all along. I galloped up the half-mile long hill to Sunnyland with ease (roughly equivalent to Brandywine Hill in terms of length and steepness). I flew down toward Kovacici but then decided to head out around the mountain the way I'd done my 34-milers a few weeks back, looping right this time into the suburb of Lukavica rather than circumnavigating the whole freaking mountain. The road was gently rolling and free of cars and I had managed to get a pretty good pace going that felt swift and effortless when all of a sudden I passed the last street light and found myself beneath a breathtaking star-spangled sky. I just had to pause and gaze at the stars! I've been on learning my constellations for several weeks now, with the binoculars and the naked eye, but being in such a dark place allowed me to see all sorts of constellations whose patterns I had previously only glimpsed on star charts (or an app). Leo and Ursa Major were right overhead and I was stunned by how bright they looked and how many tiny nameless starts were scattered under the dipper or beneath the lion's back paws. I could even see the fuzzy patches that I knew represented spectacular open clusters I'd observed through the binoculars (or back in high school, through my telescope). The Milky Way is barely visible at this latitude in early spring, so was what strinking was not so much an overwhelming number of stars but their sheer brightness piecing the jet black curtain of space. Having a mountain standing between me and the city certainly helped, as did the lack of any moon in the sky. I even saw a meteor!

Okay, back to the run. I starting up again cold and tight and decided to do skips and butt kicks for the first 100m to loosen up. Once I got going again I was much slower than before, in part because I'd lost my momentum, but also because the terrain had become much hillier (and I keep stopping to give the sky one more peek). Eventually, I wound my down into the town of Tivane amdist some feroious-sounding dogs that could easily have ripped me to bits had it not been for their chains. I passed a couple wild animals, or maybe stray dogs, earlier on the run but the darted off once I startled them. The only creature I came face to face with was a little black curly-haired mutt standing in my math and barking at me like he was my own size. I scolded and spat and him. That was enough to keep him from coming after me, but boy did he hold his ground. I'm really sick of dealing with gurad dogs.

Once in the town I managed to crank down the pace to the 6:30s and :40s, reasonably close to my marathon pace to be called a respectable tempo. I held this for several miles and even posted a good time on the dramatic uphill out of Lukavica back into Sarajevo proper. The last few miles home on the tranzit state highway were swift without being too tiring. In the end, I succeeded in my goal of doing a log run and getting in some miles close to marathon pace, plus seriously working a series of hills, all without pushing myself to the point of exhaustion. It was one of those runs where your body is just ready to move. Hopefully it will be even readier in just 2-weeks-and-2-days time.

5 min of hip work when I got home

Bonus points if you know what music the title of this entry refers to.