The training is done

When you find yourself, at 4:45am, rummaging through your child’s bathroom for something to keep your nipples from chaffing, it may be time to explore new recreational activities.  True, chaffed nipples are no joke, but can’t we consider them at a more reasonable hour?  That’s the idea of preparing everything the night before, but it’s hard to keep track of all the stuff you need and nip guards always get left out.

So that’s how it took an hour to get ready this morning.  Every time, it takes an hour but for different reasons.  This morning it was because the shirt that can protect you from 24 degree temperatures can do a job on tender bits.  That leads to the bigger question: 24 degrees?  Yeah, well who would not prefer to go out in 65 degree weather at 9 in the morning?  That choice is not always available.

So 5:00 at 24 degrees it was.  It was so cold … how cold was it? … it was so cold that normal strides felt alien for the first mile.  It always takes a while to settle down and start running, but today it took until mile 4 or so.  Being in the tunnel of my headlamp and breath fog only increased the otherworldliness.  Not until I crested the ridge on Cragmont road did I see the first light begin to push night back from the eastern sky.  Across the valley, up on High Windy, the Subdude’s lights sparkled along the southern slope.

Bit by bit, more details were revealed: the mist on Lake Tomahawk, the bits or remaining color on Montreat Road.  As a matter of record, there were 3 other runners out there.  This does not necessarily disprove my foolishness, but it is nice to have company.  Reaching Lake Susan in Montreat felt pretty good, and at that point it is all down hill.

The problem with going down hill is that it does not generate the kind of heat that going up hill does.  Climb a grade will build up a good sweat.  Descending it will leave you cold and clammy.  That’s uncomfortable at 60 degrees, but potentially dangerous at 24.  The mental games we play with ourselves are multifarious, and while I thought I could make it home on foot, I wasn’t sure I could keep all my fingers in the process.

There is one cure for being cold on a run: run faster.  With 8 or so miles to go, that can be a risky maneuver.  There has to be something left to actually move the legs.  Around mile 17, I knew I could make it home, but I began to worry that I would not have enough to make it through the marathon two weeks hence.  That, however, is an old demon and one which is easily dispatched.  I do not have to make it through the next run today.  I just have to make it through this one.