No Dogs This Time

A quick review on two runs I had recently. First, I went for a quick jog last Wednesday. As I was off that day, I set out around 8:30a.m. and took one of my regular course near my place. The distance is about 7km, which under normal circumstances is not a problem. But as I related last time, I haven't been exercising much recently, and it was pretty hot even this early in the morning, so the run was a little tough. But I could finish it without any major setbacks, and it put me in a good and relaxed mood for a interview with a TV director (check www.terophoto.blogspot.com for more info on that).

Then tonight I ran home from work, along the same path where a bunch of worthless canines had tried to intimidate me a few weeks back. When I set off on trail, my legs and body felt unresponsive and I thought the outing would be quite taxing. I kept quite a slow pace in the beginning, but with the music playing in my music player and the nice wind along the Yodo river, soon I was going at it easily. The moment of truth occurred when I decided that this was going to be a stamina session, not a speed or power build-up one. From then, I really felt good, especially after crossing the river when I ran along an unpaved path on top of the dike.

Soon I arrived in the 'danger zone', and I proceeded to take my bottle in one hand and half unhook my backpack in case the flea bags would want to play again. Actually, I think I saw them lazing in the middle of a baseball field, perhaps exhausted from the hot temperatures we had today. In any case, I jogged on through, enjoying the fireworks kids were setting off on the banks of the river.

After going through Juso, I jogged along the main road back to my place. Even when I went up the bridge passing over a train line, my pace did not lessen, and I felt great the whole time. I think I could have easily run another 2-3km tonight, and even pushed for an extra 5 if I would have really wanted it. But the sight of the two Shisha lions at the shrine near my place was more than welcome.

After my shower, I made a tofu and frozen fruit shake. I'll need to work on the recipe, mainly because of the consistency. But it felt nice nonetheless. I think that from now on and until the Sanjurokumine race in December, I'll avoid as much as possible deep fried food. I did put on a few kilos in the past month, possibly due to my cold, but also because of the munchies I've indulged in late at night.

Sorry...

... about the long delay. I'll be completely honest, I haven't run much recently. Most of the runs I did were with the KFMH3. Not that the heat deterred me (well, it did a little), but the constant switch for screeching hot and humid to very air-conditioned atmosphere wreaked havoc on my system this year.

Today we had a run from Hankyu Kawanishi Ikeda and it was excellent. The hare (course designer), Man* ophobia did an outstanding job, and even if the course was a little long (for me at least, and I finished 1st!), it was very entertaining throughout. A few weeks back I scouted and hared for trails for the Nagoya H3 Nash Hash event, and hopefully our runs will be as entertaining (although they'll be more challenging, that's for sure)!