The Eccentricities of Hobbies – Things about Which One Can Find Themselves Jazzed

You’ll have to forgive me; this blog isn’t about politics or some hilarity from my youth. No, it’s a subject I was thinking about recording as I walked one-half mile back to my house after my run last night.

My run last night was fantastic. For some background, while I am an assistant coach with a running group here in Boise, Boise Run/Walk, I’ve taken it upon myself to engage a personal coach to improve my marathon time. My coach is the head coach of the running club I run and coach with.

Thus far, engaging a personal coach has worked for me on a few levels. One, I’ve found myself resolved to work harder at my runs. I am not necessarily running harder, but I am even more mindful of certain things I would normally take for granted. As an example, this last Saturday, during my eleven miler, I made a real point of taking hydration and nutrition during my run and not skipping them, like I so often do. Of course, another component was that I spoke at my group about ensuring one is properly taking in energy and water whilst running; nevertheless, I’ve said those things before, and not practiced what I preached. With a coach and a personal program, that’s right, I’ve found myself actually doing what I know I am supposed to do.

Wow, Matt, that’s great. I know. I know, here I am prefacing the point on which I was going to write. Well, what I just wrote was more or less the point; however, what has me so motivated was the run I took last night. Mike, my coach, on Wednesdays, has my program set up for “speed work.”

For you non-runners out there, “speed work” integrates some different sorts of training into one’s run. There are different types: interval training, hill repeats, striding, tempo running, Yasso 800’s, etc… Long and short, there are lots of ways to practice speed work, and there are lots of good reasons to do it. Rather than bore you with the sports physiology, we’ll say I am motivated to do this, both to improve my marathon time and to shake up what is normally a nice gentle Wednesday-night eight-mile run.

Last night, I ran 4.16 miles from my house to a street just east of Warm Springs golf course in Boise. There, I crossed the street at the ped-way, and came to the hill at Wind Song St. Wind Song is a beautiful steep hill, with a sidewalk, leading up to nice affluent homes. It’s rather rural, but it’s not in the middle of nowhere. I believe technically it is still in Boise-proper.

There at Wind Song, I did 8 x :30’s. Essentially, after running 4.16 miles, I stretched a bit, and ran 8 trips up this hill, turning around to return to the bottom. When I got to the bottom, I’d prepare my Garmin again, and take off up the hill. That took me between five and ten minutes. I don’t recall exactly (when doing hill repeats, one isn’t turning around to run them the second they get to the bottom).

Anyway, after I completed those hill repeats, I took off back to my house. My head felt great, and my run started quite strong. At that point, I think my body was accustomed to the challenge of running up hill. Needless to say, I ran back to my house, and cut it short at eight miles, which left me about .8 miles to walk back to my house. The walk was quite refreshing, and I did so with a great amount of self-satisfaction.

It’s quite amazing, this human experience, pushing myself to do something I would have considered “conditioning” as a teenager. Now, I dig on the fact that I am going to be a better runner, and that I was motivated to do that on my own. Coach Mike left me a voice mail while I was in a meeting earlier, and wondered how it was going. I think I’ll send him this link.