If you asked me a few years ago if I would ever consider the benefits or even attempt something called a “long run,” I would have laughed. It’s been 3 weeks since I had to close my office due to COVID-19 concerns, 3 weeks since my kids abruptly left school. So much has changed. Yet, as someone who once purchased the domain name, hermitwhimsy.com, it’s more like a restrictive summer vacation to us. We generally don’t socialize much and our summers are chock full of togetherness. We hike a lot in the summer and explore places and things, we are trying to stay close to home now.
The long run has become my coping mechanism to deal with uncertainty. I take a wide berth around the people I never saw until a few weeks ago, I run all winter and summer, like the post office, wind, sleet, snow, etc and have never seem most of these people.
I didn’t realize how much my winter psoas injury had effected my running. I read that a posas injury can take months to heal, but I am stubborn and don’t think normal healing times apply to me. I am not running fast, though there isn’t much incentive as all of our local races have been cancelled, but I feel strong and I am pretty much heading out until I feel like turning around. I ran over 7 miles the other day, a personal record. Not a marathon or even a half-marathon for that matter, but I kept a steady pace (around 9:45 min/mi) and managed to run the last mile in under 8:30 min/mi. I listened to music, admired the blooming trees, held my nose past the Bradford Pear trees (smells like vomit!) and focused on putting one foot in front of the other.
I am trying to look at this break in my life and work as a sabbatical, something I always joked that I wanted. Well, I have it and now I just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other. And veer around all of those other people.