The Road Ahead

I tricked myself into running today. I had all sorts of excuses not to run. I had run seven days in a row. My left knee ached all day yesterday, another good reason to take a day off. It’s been awhile since I had a really good night’s sleep. Etc. However, while I never actually want to be running when I step out the door, I always want to have run. And today I especially wanted that.

So I did something new. Instead of starting a run or a walk, I walked to warm up for a run. I walked the block of my street that ends at Philadelphia Avenue, crossed Piney Branch Road, turned up a short, very steep hill (excellent torture training), and continued through the neighborhood, past the schools, to Maple Avenue. The walk was exactly ten minutes at a fast pace, and then I started running the gentle descent to Sligo Creek.

As I touched Start on the Nike Run Club app, my Run playlist came up on Spotify and played the opening notes of Danzón No. 2, by Arturo Márquez. That was magic — my current favorite of the playlist.

I didn’t know how far I would run, but I knew it would be at least to Sligo Creek and a short distance along the creek because I love the woods and the path and the sense of having left the city behind. Danzón No. 2 is ten minutes long, so turning around at the end of it would give me a 20-minute run plus another 10-minute walk home. On my return along the creek, another runner came toward me and we passed each other going opposite directions. She was about my age; she had gray hair and a wise face. I smiled at her.

Shortly after I reached Maple Avenue the NRC app told me I had run one mile at a pace of 13 minutes 17 seconds — woohoo! I know, that’s a laughably slow pace — for other runners, but not for me. My usual first-mile split is around 14:40, and today’s split shows what I can do when I don’t have steep hills on my warm-up. Last month my average pace over 17 runs was 13:55. But for July 2020, the month I re-started running after about a 20-year hiatus, my pace averaged 17 minutes over 12 runs.

“It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.” — Confucius