Set Me In Motion

All day today I was dreading what I knew I'd have to make myself do tonight.  Yesterday I worked outside most of the day, in the 120+ temps.  I was exhausted and dehydrated.  I knew yesterday afternoon I would not be able to have a good workout being in the condition that I was in.  Therefore I knew I had to make it happen today.

I work out at night.  Anyone that knows me knows that I cannot get my butt out of bed in the mornings to save my life.  Instead I start my workout routine around 8-8:30 at night.  By this time it's cooled off to at least 110 degrees.

Lately I've been having more pain in my knees and ankles during and after my run.  I have been extremely disappointed in my performance the last couple of weeks.  I have not been able to get into a good rhythm while I'm running.  The whole time I feel "off".  My run times have been atrocious....the slowest pace I have ever run.  The distances I've been running are shorter than what I expected to be running at this point.  Overall I'm pretty bummed about the whole deal.

Tonight was not any different than most other nights.  I couldn't have been a quarter mile down the road before I had to stop and walk a little because my knees where killing me.  I walked it off and kept going, refusing to quit, even if it hurt me.  I struggled along through the rest of mile 1.  About a mile and half into my endeavor I was to turn around and head back.  I couldn't get comfortable, my knees were on fire, and the effects of dehydration were kicking in.  I tried to stave off the pain by throttling back a little.  Not that I was blazing a trail by any means, but I slowed way down and started focusing on my breathing and my form.

About this time a certain song popped on my iPod.  Yeah, yeah, I know it's against regulations to run with headphones on, but I'm a gunnery sergeant now...I do what I want to do!  Back to the song...It was a song from the movie Backdraft.  Bruce Hornsby's "Set Me In Motion."  Whenever I hear the song it reminds me of the movie, which in turn reminds me of my old man.  At that moment I got to thinking about running with my dad.

I'm not sure why I did it, but instead of turning around and the end of the road, I turned the corner and kept going.  I had only planned on about 3 and a half mile run.  Next thing I know I'm breezing through mile 4 and now mile 5.  Okay, okay, I wasn't breezing through any of it.  But thinking about the miles my dad has run over the years helped pushed me through mine tonight.  I was in a comfortable rhythm and running at a comfortable pace.  I was still feeling the effects of trying to run in the heat and being on the dehydrated side, but at least I had forgotten about the pain in my knees.  I smartly wrapped it up somewhere around mile 6.  I'm not sure how far it was exactly, but a lot farther than I intended when I started out.

I know if I had looked left or right I wouldn't not have seen anyone, but tonight I know that my dad was there with me every step of the way.  Thanks for the run, Pops.