The Rare Monday Run

I ran today because I didn't run Saturday. Friday was a really stupid day at work and then I spent the evening at a rock climbing place with The Boy. All that combined with a dose of ragweed conspired to give me a nice allergy attack Friday evening, and all day Saturday I felt like crap. I've been pretty fortunate so far this year but Saturday was not good. The body aches and general feeling of being drugged stayed with me all day. I meant to go for a run at various times but just couldn't drag myself to do it. I felt better yesterday and again thought about running but never made it out the door. This morning the sky was cloudy after some overnight rain and the air seemed clear. I went out for a 6-miler and felt great, and still do. I'm hoping this weekend was the worst of allergy season.

I finished Born to Run and did a little more research on barefoot running. I don't think it's for me, although I can see the potential benefits along with the possible side effects. The joy of running is what I'm focusing on from the book, and I think somewhere in there it also talked about cadence. I tried that on my run this morning and concentrated on 180 steps/minute. I checked several times with my Garmin and found that I was able to maintain that rate of footfalls for most of the run, even on the hills. When I started out I felt like I was running in place, but that was okay. I ran a little faster today, 9:17/mile, but I attribute that to the 61 degree temperature than I do the change in cadence. I'm going to keep trying and might have to find a metronome for the iPod or some mp3 that has a beat at that rate.