For the first time since I was running collegiate cross country I set out for a second run of the day this Tuesday.
The morning run was a crammed in 6 miler to "get in" before driving east to Raleigh for my first NHL spectating experience. (Seats just above the Zamboni door!! Since I actually am a former Zamboni operator I find Ice Maintenance Operations quite interesting... and there was also a game to watch between resurfacing epics.) So down the road I trotted, up and down the rollers of Peoria Road, my home road, I own it in a sense... though on this easy 6, I felt like the one whom was owned. I started near 11am... my lunchtime and had not eaten anything. This led to that drained, depleted feeling as we would approach the bonk stage of a long effort. I settled into the feeling and explored it for a couple of miles.
The comfort of knowing I was 15 minutes from the house led me to comfort and confidence even in this weakened state. I hope to carry this experience forward and draw on it in a future adventure, whether it be a race or some random trail day.
Buckled into the car, I began the 3 1/2 hour drive to the RBC Center. I reached my destination around 4:30 and had a couple of hours to kill... because I was planning on staying the night somewhere on the way home I had brought running gear with me. Well, the air was warm and gentle and I had time so... what to do? Run.
And run I did. Out to the NC State football venue and the illustrious highway department. Sensing that the area was becoming less "runner friendly" I turned and headed back where the sidewalks were wide and clean... this led to a corporate office park and here I found a nice rolling section of hills to take me to the sunset and to a 7 mile effort.
This second run felt much more relaxed and I was able to seemingly garner oxygen more efficiently. My muscles were more accepting of the running movement, as if they were asking for more! Well, I know better than to let excitement dictate behavior when it comes to running so I called it earlier than I may have wanted to.
The result was a perfect day of running. That night I took in a 3-2 Hockey game and several perfect sheets of ice were laid down.
I drove a Zamboni in college too. I have to admit to taking my time on some of the sessions just to make people wait. Somehow it felt right!
ReplyDeleteYou capture the two-a-day experience nicely here. I really experimented with two-a-days last training cycle, running 10 runs over 6 days for 24 weeks. More often than not, I found that the 1st run of the day served to enhance the main workout- even if that enhancement was running with a little more fatigue than usual. Personally, I think it's good to run as much volume as you can handle without sacrificing the quality of your key workouts. But that's just me. I'm weird like that:-).
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