Today, I didn't expect to go for a run. Although I needed to finish Week 3, I ended up at my friend's house helping out at the barn and doing other things. Well, of course being us, we ended up down by the river. Now mind you, I hadn't planned for running. I was in jean shorts, a tank and my TOMS canvas shoes. Completely different from my typical work out gear of spandex shorts, tank and my trusty sneakers.
We had headed down with my best friend and her younger sister. (younger as in late high school) We started out with a leisurely walk, just kind of ambling along. Well somewhere after we had gotten to I don't even know where in the trail, we decided to turn around so we could go up the road to get ice cream. My best friend, who had been in the back, was now in the lead and she was power walking. I mean, this girl was booking it and not meaning to. So of course, her sister and I began making fun of her for it.
Mind you, I had never EVER been a runner. If I was running with my friends, it would have been for short sprints and I would've been out of breath at the end of it. So I took off on the walk and passed my best friend, prancing in place backwards to get her egged on. Her being an old softball player and just as competitive and spirited as me, took off and away we were. (Her sister stayed kind of behind, well complaining that we were running but she was ok.) The path was in no ways anything like the pavement of the streets and bike trail I had been running on. This was truly cross country.
It wasn't like we were breakneck speeding along. I really was just at a relaxed jog, much of like I do on my Couch to 5k runs. But the path added another obstacle, rocks and roots. I had to actually feel for my footing a bit more and with my canvas shoes, it felt like I was running barefoot. At one point, there was actually a fallen log that came up in front of me and my friend and I simply popped over it and kept on our run.
It was actually relaxing and a lot of fun. Before I knew it, I was going up and down slopes that at a walk, I would've so carefully picked my way over and down them. Now, I blew up and down them, feeling my quads take it all in stride.
We got to the end of the path and while I have no clue exactly what distance it was, I wasn't winded at all. My friend and I were just exclaiming how great it felt. I had never run like this before. This was a completely different experience for me. I think I'm going to try and track down more parks to run around. The added obstacle of inclines and rocks and such was actually really good for me and the change of environment kept me focused and having fun. Now all I need to do is round up a running partner for my morning runs.
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