Body Atoms

Thursday, 01/05/06 - Tempo Run

The run was doomed from the start. I had drank my dinner watching the game, although there was quite a spread of smoked ham, appetizers, queso, baked beans, black-eyed peas and cornbread for the taking. The pre-game, game and post game lasted from 5:00 p.m. until well after 2:00 a.m. I kept glued to the remote, switching from one celebration into the next, sometimes watching the same coverage four or five times. I couldn't believe UT were national champions. Actually, I could as I wasn't worried at all with 45 seconds to go in the game. I had seen Vince Young and the horns do it to teams time after time. They would prove to do it again.

Driving down to Town Lake on a beautiful sunny day with temps in the seventies, I was looking for excuses. It's too windy. My new shoes will cause the quarter sized blister to become a silver dollar-sized blister. I don't have the right shorts. Thank God for the Nike commercials. Just do it! is sunk into everyone's head who's seen them and trains. And if you don't Just do it!, you're basically saying to yourself, Loser, loser, double loser. Another snippet of information engrained into my brain. So I got out of the truck and made my way to the rock to warm up and stretch.

The warm up and stretch felt great, but the first mile was punishment for my celebration the night before, continuing into the wee hours. My sweat didn't stink of alcohol as I expected it to, just a sluggishness like I hadn't run in two weeks. My thoughts turned to the Sunday's race and I wondered how I'd feel if I slacked off. I knew I feel it and decided to increase the pace and make this a workout.

In the end, I'm glad I did as the time came out one minute, thirty seconds slower than last week's run [41:46/4.5M]. I can't say I felt as great as last week's run, but it felt great to get the workout in so that I could slide into a rest period before Sunday's race.

Permanent Link: 1/05/2006 09:07:00 PM