Long Run

Powered by all that clam chowder and cornbread, we were ready for our long run of the week this Saturday morning.  Conditions were perfect for running - overcast, temperatures in the 40s - and we both enjoyed the usual route out to Fort Macon and back (plus some extra loops around the parking lot).  There were plenty of athletic-looking people out at the Fort; it is a popular place on Saturday mornings for runners, hikers, and cyclists.  There were also many children, belonging to some youth group we think; I could hear them squealing with delight as they ran around the Fort.

I was glad to be able to complete eight miles; Martha completed six miles  I'm a little ahead of her on mileage but she is ahead of me on speed, and I don't think I will ever be able to catch her again.  This is a fact of life for this aging runner and I have adjusted to slower times and shorter distances.  The days of running nine-minute miles for 26 miles, which I was able to do a decade again, have been replaced by 11-minute miles and distances no farther than 13 miles.  But I am grateful for what I am still capable of doing, as Ulysses was in Tennyson's poem of that name:

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are

We have signed up for a race next Saturday, a 5-K in Havelock which we ran last year, and then one week later there is the Cocoa 5-K here in Morehead City.  So this long run was just right for both of us.  Next week, we will ease off on the mileage and skip the intervals.  A taper in mileage before a race seems to benefit me more and more each year.

Today there seemed to be more shrimpers than usual, going back and forth in front of the condo, east to west and back again; perhaps that is what brought to mind Ulysses, that great sailor.  The temperature has warmed a little, but still it must be cold on one of those boats!  And there were kite-flyers, too, enjoying the brisk breeze this afternoon.