Go Lose Yourself ...

the routine of a track ...

 Over the course of a life time, a routine becomes set, we become creatures of habit. It just becomes natural for us wake up, brush our teeth, brew our coffee, get ready for work, drive the same route nearly everyday. A routine becomes part of our life, this also holds true for running. We get up throw on our running gear, turn on our Garmin, tie our shoes and head on our run to run our mileage. Take a look at your own running schedule, if you are training for a marathon or race, you probably have some sort of interval workout, tempo run, and long run. I am pretty certain you have those runs on the same days of the week throughout the 16 week program you are running. Over the course of time, that same route you run for your tempo or recovery run might become boring. Running itself to me is not boring, but often times, I think to myself I need something different, something else to see while running.

So over the last couple of weeks, I have decided to vary my runs by driving to various starting points. Even on my easy running days, I found it best to just find somewhere that I haven’t ran before or ran through in a long time. Last week, I totaled over 78 miles in my training. With plenty of places to run around the Sacramento area, I decided to go lose myself amongst the trails. Rather than playing it safe and running just on the paved areas, I ventured more into the dirt roads and even threw in a few horse trails along the river. My recovery days became a little more true to easy pace, as I was so engaged in seeing what was around me. I had opportunities to even run with my running group in areas that were different, as we logged 22 miles on a course that some runners consider the Boston simulator, this run also included parts of the American River 50.

With 60 days until my first goal race of the year (Honda LA Marathon), the mileage really has been kicking up. Breaking the routine has been very important not just from a mileage standpoint, but a mental clarity point as well. My last 9 days of LA Marathon training have looked like this:

• January 7 - 10.31 miles easy @ 7:54 / mile
• January 8 - 8.11 miles total: 2.32 mile warm-up, 6x800 meters, 1.55 mile cool down.
• January 9 - 4.02 miles easy @7:56 / mile
• January 10 (AM) - 12.01 miles: 2 mile warmup, 8 mile tempo (7:01/mi), 2 mile cool down
• January 10 (PM) - 2.2 miles easy @ 8:51 / mile with a friend starting to run
• January 11 - 10 miles easy @ 7:53 / mile
• January 12 - 10.01 miles easy @ 8:11 / mile
• January 13 - 22.16 miles: first 15 miles at long run pace (7:42)
• January 14 - 10.01 miles easy @ 7:54 / mile
• January 15 (AM) - 9.24 miles total: 2.5 mi warmup, 3 x 1600, 3 mi cool down
• January 15 (PM) - 3.12 miles easy @ 8:30 / mile with a friend starting to run

It’s amazing how refreshing things can become and how much more you can enjoy an already beautiful thing (running), when you lose yourself and break the routine. On a recent Facebook post, I saw the words “I run to add life to my days, not days to my life.” The only way you can add more life to anything we do in life, including running, is to take in more of the world around you. Next week I am pretty excited to hit some more trails as a running buddy and I drive Northeast of Sacramento about 45 minutes to run in the city of Auburn ... Do yourself a favor and go get lost on the roads less traveled by your running self.

losing myself on a run lead me to this