Solar Trails

On evenings like this you can’t help but day-dream.

It’s mid-September and though you can see light fade that little bit faster every evening, it is still warm. Almost unseasonably so. Above the sky is blue but the clouds at and just above the horizon mean the sun setting, casts the most amazing solar beams across the sky.

Below I am running with a solid crew slowly creeping up our pace over three tempo runs. For the first 15 minutes we run what is for me a little over my marathon pace or what I would have hoped my marathon pace would have been before my injury. After three minutes’ recovery jogging the next 12 minutes is at marathon pace and the last 10 minutes at sub-marathon pace. Going into the last minute and a half my calf has held up and just for one I decide to stride out. All session I have felt that I have been running within myself. In fact, for weeks I felt I have been running within myself constrained my calf muscle the threatens to pull the hand-brake if it is crossed. This time however it feels loose as a daisy and I just press the accelerator and push ahead.

It feels good and on evenings like this it is hard not to day-dream. Despite the injury and the set-back to training. Despite the knowledge that I will need everything right to get around at a reasonably decent lick and that the miles are simply not in the bag as I would have hoped a part of me can’t help but day-dream and wonder what if? What if on the day I feel great and set out at a god speed. What if I feel as good I do now and come 10 kilometres to go I dare to believe? What if at 5 it is within my grasp the sub 3 and I decide to put the hammer down and go for it? What if? What if? What if?

Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true or is it something worse? Though I know what Bruce's answer is I’m yet to think of my own.

Yesterday’s training

The tempo run of above was Thursday’s training. Yesterday’s was an 1 hr 3 mins of slow pace running covering 12 k.