Miles for the week: 14 (3/3/3/5) PRE-TRAINING WEEK 4
5 miles LSD: 1:00:18, average heart rate 140 (good!)
Weight: 117
Resting HR: 44
Fitness test: 53

Another gorgeous day for the long run: cobalt sky with a few bright white clouds, on the cool side, dry, breeze, sunny, perfect! I focused on keeping my heart rate under 140 if possible, having relaxed arms & legs (especially ankles), and "body sensing" (I'm making my way through Danny Dryer's ChiRunning). At one point my right knee was hurting a tiny bit. When I became aware of it, I tried to consciously relax the muscles around the knee and straighten my feet a little, and the pain went away.

Long runs on sunny days create the right conditions for my version of "runner's high": a feeling of perfect happiness, that all is right in my world, my body and mind are in sync and I'm doing just what I ought to be doing. I'm a monist, not a dualist--I think body/mind is one thing, that I am my body and my body is me, so it's unfortunate that I've often been more focused on the cerebral and not taken my body seriously enough. One of the great things about running is the necessary focus on listening to my body, fueling my body (instead of just eating what my mind thinks I *want*), appreciating my body and what it can do. So that feeling that my body is doing what it was designed to do, that I'm using it to its full capacity as well as my brain, brings happiness and fulfillment.

I have a hat and wristbands now, but the jury's still out (maybe a visor would be better; a TOWEL would definitely be better than a wristband!) I wore shorts on Friday's 3-miler and got a blackfly bite on the thigh that hurt like the dickens (especially when my sweat got into it and made it sting) and still itches. I'll definitely put up with the increased heat of tights in order to avoid that happening again (plus the sunscreen factor). Of course I get bitten & sunburned on my arms, but I'm used to that. My poor legs are usually covered up so they would have a lot of toughening up to do.

Still lots of new wildflowers this week, though it's got to slow down soon: milkweed just starting, crown vetch, yarrow, musk mallow, aslike clover, curled dock, wild madder (awful weed!), butter-and-eggs, one small brown-eyed susan, bittersweet nightshade, Deptford pink. A spiked rush of some kind, lots of grasses. Ones I didn't know & had to bring home to check: whorled loosestrife, moneywort, clasping-leaved dogbane, and one I still can't find although it looks like it should be easy! At the opposite end of Stanley Lake I saw a couple of dandelions with three or four skippers on each (cute little brown insects that are not true butterflies but in the same suborder), and I saw one mourning cloak butterfly.
- posted by Hilary @ 12:31 PM