My longest run since, well, a long time

Yesterday, I ran (well, mostly jogged) up and jogged (perhaps closer to a fast walk) down the 65 steps in the school lot about 22 times. I felt it during and after, but just not enough to give myself a day off today. With that in mind, this morning I decided to try a longer run, without pushing myself speed-wise.

I did not time my first (usual) mile, though it was probably around 11 minutes. The middle part of my run was on Greensburg Pike, which I used to run on when I lived in the Forest Hills/Chalfant area. I sped up a little during that part because I noticed two senior citizens running at about the same pace as I was; there was just no way I was going to let grandma and grandpa outpace me! Fortunately, there are no killer hills on that road, just some smaller up- and downhills, and I ended up running that leg of the journey in under 25 minutes. I tried to take a slight advantage of the last, mostly downhill mile (I again passed the grandparents), though that mile still took me about nine minutes to complete.

I ended up finishing the run in 45 minutes, give or take a minute. When I measured the jaunt, I was happy to see I ran almost 4.5 miles. I am guessing the last time I ran that far was during the Great Race in 2002 (I actually ran 6.2 miles, since I ran the 10k).

The thing about running races, at least for me, but I bet for most people, is you don't really need to run that distance on a regular basis. If you can run close to it without taxing yourself too much, then you will probably be fine to run farther. This entire summer, I ran 3 miles only twice, and yet I managed to run the 3.1 5k on Saturday just fine.

Anyway, I felt pretty good at the end of today's run, confident I can run even farther next time. So much so, that if I were going to be in town on September 26, I would so be running the Great Race (at a very slow pace, mind you). I guess I will just have to try to get in some more longer runs, for my own satisfaction.