Sleep. That is what I think about the most in my life, probably. This week has not been terrible, relatively speaking. The three Things that usually like to wake up at five a.m. have chosen to wake up between 6:15 and 6:30 this week. While this development excited me, it could not last. Often, the night before the night before a big run or race is the most important opportunity to get sleep because nerves can often play talk sleep for a long run and leave one wide-eyed. Of course, last night, I mistakenly stayed up a little too late, and Thing 3 decides to revert to his five a.m. rising regimen. Does he not care about his daddy's sleep?
Well, that is what caffeine is for, and I have plenty of it for tomorrow morning, which will come for me at three a.m. I have never run for six hours. I took a hike one time when I was eighteen or nineteen, and the ascent took well over three hours. The descent (after an hour or two of rest) was much faster, but still, a total of over five hours of hiking. The difference? I may have covered six or seven miles, but I did weigh over 400 pounds. Tomorrow's run will cross into the 20+ mile range, depending on how I feel. It sounds slow (and it really is), but don't forget that I am running single-track mountain trails. I lot of unforgiving climbs and joint pounding descents. It does more than take one's breath away; it sucks your soul.
Today, I planned to spend as much time off my feet as possible. I did well for most of the day, but the inevitability of duties to home and family made the last few hours leg-fatiguing. I hope that what sleep I do get tonight remedies that.
Tomorrow is a big test, and if all goes well, it will represent an evolutionary leap for my running. The problem is, no matter how I feel during and after the run tomorrow, the real test comes in the days following. How well will I recover? I will just wait for evolution to run its course.
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