When I started running I could hardly imagine myself doing more than about 5 km. In fact, my heart cringed at the idea of 5km. It was on the “I will do it someday” list. Looking back at my beginning runs on Strava, it does not paint a pretty picture. I was doing 3km run/walks at a blistering pace of approximately 9min/km.
But I was moving.
Those early steps was what got me moving. To be honest, I did not fall in love with running immediately. I mean, I have never ran before. Never. And at the ripe old age of 42, lifting your feet and running is hard. Especially when you cannot breathe. Your heart feels like it’s about to explode your eardrums. And you wonder how you are supposed to get back home, which is now an endless 1,5km behind you.
But then, the next day, you find yourself doing the same thing albeit with a little more structure. Run a minute then walk a minute… or maybe start with 30 seconds… And then, once you have caught your breath a couple of days later, and you have convinced yourself that you will, in fact, not die, you hit the pavement again. And again. And again.
Then you think; “Well would it not be nice to be able to run a 5km”. And you go to a Parkrun. Beyond your wildest dreams you actually finish it! You catch yourself buying running shoes. You buy a hysterically yellow running shirt that can be seen from the moon, because you run late in the evenings after work.
Then somebody mentions that a 10km race might be a good idea. The voice that mentions it sounds oddly familiar…
You realise that you will not be able to do a 10 km if you keep running 3km stints. So on a lovely almost spring Sunday morning you don your running threads and you embark on “A long run”.
My first long run was approximately 10 km long. My pace was reasonable but would not have scared a tortoise to a complete standstill. At the end of it I was dog tired. Really, really dog tired. But somewhere during that long run, my love affair with running started.
And the next weekend I did it again.
And the weekend after that again, and further.
It is now three years later. I have conquered the 5km, the 10km and the Half Marathon. I am 19 weeks away from running my first Marathon. I have had exceptional luck, and exceptional misfortune. I have been bulletproof and I have been riddled with injuries.
Will I change it for anything? No way!!!
And all of that thanks to the long run.
So what makes the long run so special? Well, a couple of things, I would imagine. Firstly, the pace. I mean, a long run is exactly that. Long. Slow. You are not running for speed. Coach Greg Mc Millan described it very well. He said that the long run is there to get your body used to the motions of running. To get the biomechanics re-adjusted. To get you ready for the 5 or 6 hours of running you will have to do during a marathon.
Secondly, I think it is the therapeutic aspect of running, and the overdose of it that you receive during a long run.
A long run is when I think. When I wonder. When I look inside and outside and when the two get to know each other. It is some quite Me Time. It is also where I get to know my body. Where tired legs and tired mentality start to feel different. Where you start to notice that your mind does not want to go any further, but your body says; “I’m OK.” And then the times when your mind says; “Let’s run another 5”, but your legs just don’t want to.
I am only now getting back to proper training after a horrid bevvy of injuries that ended in both ITB’s being completely shot. I have just started, gingerly, running a month ago. Doing the 5km stints and hitting the gym like crazy, hoping against hope that the injury monster will abate and let me be. I have started on the road to my first Marathon the day before yesterday. I am doing my first “long run” for almost three months this weekend. It will not be a very long run. It may not even be a medium long run.
But it will be a long run.
And I am looking forward to falling in love all over again.
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