Racing Ronald – And He Didn’t Even Know It

I hate long runs.  Really.  I know it doesn’t make sense when my favorite races are those that are 100+ miles, but that doesn’t mean I like to do them in training.  Yes, I make sure to run 20 miles a day.  Yes, I think that LONG slow distance is the secret to great running. But unless I’m racing, I really don’t like to do all my LSD in one run, so I split it up into several shorter runs throughout the day.  The compromise I make with my lazy self is that once a week I do my entire 20 miles ALL AT ONE TIME.  I also do a lot of marathons for fun so that I’m forced to do longer continuous runs at a little faster pace.  But that’s it.  That’s all my lazy self will do.

This morning, however, a wrench was thrown into my plans: one of my tweeting buddies, Ronald, an ultrarunner from the Netherlands who is training to run Route 66 (how cool is that?!), tweeted that he was running 40 miles this morning.  Hmmmm….my lazy self was intrigued, and challenged.  I can never ignore a throwdown, even if the other person isn’t trying to throw down, or doesn’t even know I had seen his tweet.

Seriously, though, how could I just do a wimpy 20 when Ronald was doing 40?  I knew I had no business doing 40, but couldn’t I at least step up and do 30?  With my recent cold and torn hamstring, I really needed a confidence booster, a test of my fitness, and a challenge.  It had been months since I pushed myself just for the fun of it. This seemed like a golden opportunity.

I hesitated briefly because it was going to be 102  degrees and I was starting late, but I decided that would just make it more interesting.  And I’d get one heck of a tan!  So, I headed out out around 7:00 am and started looping.  And looping. And looping.  Six 5 mile loops in all, giving me a 30 mile run.

Ronald still beat me – this time – but I had done it.  And it felt good.  Especially when I was done.

Thanks for the push, Ronald!  Until next week…

Happy Running!