The Joys Of Running

Today was a day filled with joy throughout. My day began waking up at 5am. While taking time to eat a Power Bar I laced up my BROOKS running shoes and then headed for the elevator. With GARMIN, Gu gel and some Gu 2 Go in the water bottle I set out for an 8 mile run. The concierge at my hotel recommended crossing over the Hillsborough River to get to Bayshore Drive and run along the 4.5 mile sidewalk along the bay waters. At 5:30 am I was on my guard heading out because it was still dark. Once on Bayshore I became a little more relaxed, as the safety appeared a bit more evident. On one side of me I had water gently sloshing up along the sea wall. On the other side I had four lanes of nearly empty roadway with an occasional passing car. Separating me and the roadway was a 20-30 foot grassy section with a few interspersed palm trees blowing in the breeze. Along the way I passed numerous stretching and exercise stations, in addition to waste bins (which made it easy to throw away empty Gu gel packs), and best of all, water drinking fountains. This was a definite runners spot. By 6am I had begun to see other runners. By 7am there were numerous runners. Unlike my run in Austin there were no dogs this morning.

The entire run along Bayshore was lit with street lamps spaced about every 50 yards. I mention this because after my first two miles I decided to get in some interval work during my run. I started out with running two light posts, then walking for two. I repeated this four times and then stepped it up to three run and one walk, again repeating four times. After that cycle I remained in a walk mode for a bit while I consumed a gel pack. Shortly afterward, I went to a run four light posts and walk four. I did this until I reached my four mile halfway point. Upon turning around I wanted to push a little harder and went to a run six light posts with a three light post recovery. I did this for nearly three miles.

One of the greatest surprises I have received while out on a run came when I turned around at the halfway point of the day’s run and began my second four miles back to the hotel. When I turned around, still in the dark but with a slight glimmer of daylight beginning to crack the horizon, was the beautiful nightlight skyline of Tampa, Florida. Seeing it just overpowered me. I was blown away with the sight. I guess because inside I was thinking "Wow! I ran that far? " Knowing I was staying in Downtown Tampa, the center of the skyline I was gazing upon, it just amazed me I had gone out so far.. It just sort of put the distance traveled into a different frame of light. What made this sight even better was that I got to look at it for the next four miles as the sun began to come to life on the horizon.

With a great feeling of energy at the conclusion of my run I made my way back to my room to clean up and head off to work. I can tell you today’s run was by far the sweatiest I have ever done. I do not think there was an ounce of dry clothing on my body, including my Fenway running hat. Something I may take as a lesson is to have a visor as opposed to a cap when on my warmer weather runs. I found myself to be a lot warmer wearing the hat, where a visor would allow more heat to escape the head while running. Now I just need to find me an appropriate visor to my liking. After the shower, I did a quick download of GARMIN to the computer. Here are my mileage splits today:

Mile Time
------ ------
1 16:11
2 14:57
3 13:26
4 13:19
5 12:52
6 12:31
7 12:35
8 12:40

In addition to analyzing my split times, I got a better sense of the elevation graph today. Normally when home in Oklahoma I run at an altitude between 1100 and 1200 feet above sea level. Today I ran between 5 and 40 feet. It also made me realize that next weekend will be a bit tougher as I will be running in the mile-high air of Denver, Colorado.

Done with the initial analyzing, I packed up the computer and walked close to another ¾ miles to work at the St. Pete Times Forum, host location of the Women’s Final Four. This is where the day really became joyful. A quick back story first. Last weekend three of my sisters, in three different states, set out on a run together at the same time. It was to be a family support fun run. Knowing someone else in your family was out there running with you, but not with you, was to give you the extra boost to keep you moving along. Upon their completion of their runs they found out another sister and I had completed our runs within an hour of theirs as well. It all sounded pretty cool and we decided to do it again this week. Now, back to today. Four of the five from last week committed to today’s run. In addition, we recruited a few more family members (cousins, parents, siblings and spouses). We started the day with what we thought would be seven runners. With us in different time zones and different work and immediate family time requirements we were not all able to run at the same time. Therefore, we decided to email and text one another when we set out for our runs. My cousin in Oregon I am sure to say was happy to receive my text at 230am his time when I set out on my run. Throughout the morning hours while at work I was logged into my email, reading everyone’s mention of heading out to run. As people began to conclude their runs they emailed or texted their mileage total, some included their time. With each report that came in I would calculate the time and distance and send out an email update. I half jokingly asked if we would be able to complete a marathon today with the seven of us running. The day moved along, the updates kept going out, and to my surprise, more and more reports kept coming in. One even got on the treadmill for a couple of miles in guilt for not taking part. By the day’s end we had had 15 family members take part in our relay fun run. Not only did we make the marathon, we surpassed the Disney’s Goofy Race and Half Challenge distance of 39.3 with an accrual of 46.18 miles in an estimated 11 hours of run/walk time. In all we had participants in seven states: Florida (1), Louisiana (2), Kansas (1), Maine (3), Massachusetts (5), Oregon (2) and Texas (1). It was so heart-warming to see the family support grow throughout the day as more and more people took part. The end result of it all was a successful one because we got people up and moving. There was no shame in the distances traveled or the time it took to cover it. Everyone was very supportive. I am hoping next week we may reprise the family run again and maybe shoot for the 50 miler, or better yet, the double marathon (52.4).

With all the joy in the day, I almost forgot the little bit of frustration with GARMIN. I am really getting tired of it taking so long to locate satellites. When I am ready to go for my runs I am far too often finding myself having to wait anywhere from two to five minutes for GARMIN to lock in. It gets aggravating when I am ready to go. Also, I once again point out that GARMIN does not function well in the city – at least around tall building as they warn (this is true for my auto GARMIN as well). Once I did finally lock in the satellites and set out on my run it would tell me to speed up or slow down. It would tell me I traveled five feet, then nothing, then ten feet, then nothing. This morning it was really acting stupid until I got out away from the buildings. I am finding that not only does it have difficulty finding the satellites, but the tall buildings bounce the signals around, ultimately confusing the machine, therefore frustrating me. Okay, rant over.

Thank you for taking the time to read. See you again soon on the runners’ blog.