Magic Bananas

(Written Saturday, October 6, 2012)

One week of training down! I won't get into the minutia of my training schedule, but today I ran the farthest I ever have. Like, EVER. It was only 4 miles, but if you had told me a year ago that the words “only”, “four”, and “miles” would come out of my mouth in that order I would have told you get out of town. Seriously. No, really, leave.

I think it's safe to say that I've made great strides (pun INTENDED) in mastering the morning run. I have always been an after work sunset runner, because I was born “not a morning person”. The sun comes up and my body says NOPE. But I know that I need to train my body to say “YAY! It's morning! Let's go run 9 miles! Hooray!” So I have been diligent about getting out of bed a 6am and doing my run. Because it works better with my schedule, and the actual race is in the morning, so I need to be used to the morning (which was my downfall with Pat's Run – another story for another day, or maybe not. Let's just pretend like that one never happened. Okay, thanks.).

Day one was ROUGH. Like, lead feet, tired mushy brain runningishorrible whyamidoingthis Iwillneverbeabletorun13miles I'mtired Iwanttojustlayhereonthesideoftheroad. Thomas suggested that I eat a banana before my next run because that's what he used to do in high school for tennis, so I did, and OOOOH man! BANANA-RAMA! I have done the banana thing twice now and it makes a world of difference. I cannot overstate the magic of the banana. I have energy, I'm focused, I can run and run and run.

And I'm actually starting to love the morning. It's just me. Thomas and the cats are still sleeping. The house is quiet. The world is quiet. I have my tea and banana, I gather my gear (post on gear is in the works....) and I GO. The sun is just peeking up over block walls and desert landscaping, there's a tiny (very tiny) chill in the air, I don't have to do anything for the next however many miles except run those miles. It's just me and Ira Glass (see next paragraph for explanation of potentially obscure reference...).

I am a big, HUGE, fan of public radio, and I've found that my favorite thing to listen to while I run is not up-tempo inspirational music (Kelly Clarkson, Stronger – I'm looking at you!), but This American Life, with host Ira Glass. If you don't know what it is, click the link. It's awesome. It's the best. I just get absolutely lost in the story, and before I know it, I've done another mile. Love, LOVE.

Stay tuned. Next week I end with five miles. Sheeeesh.