Inner sharks always use their core

Today one of the errands was to hit Coop for a few odds and ends. Naturally, ELF had blogged about her grocery issues. That was going through my mind as I was dodging the geezers though I didn't have it quite as bad as she did. No stalkers, for one thing. I eyed one woman methodically examining every single one of the broccoli stalks. Good thing I didn't need any. Without a cart I managed to fake out another geezer. She thought I was going for the fruit cups, and I managed to get the cherry tomatoes without incident. Two old dears were having a conversation in front of the milk. The two of them, and their two carts formed a long line, but not quite long enough. I was beginning to think of the potential solutions considered by the Cameron Philips character played by Summer Glau, but things got better around the meat counter.

Without entirely meaning to I ended up having a super run today. I wanted to try out the new tights and gloves, and wanted to have a run that was a bit faster than my comfortable pace. Walked 15 minutes to warm up, then started my 8K route. I called the weather perfectly, cool and a bit windy, maybe 0 C. Started easy and found my stride very quickly, within a few hundred meters. Even better, my inner shark showed up. He explained how sharks do everything from their core, especially swimming and biting. We had a nice chat.

I could feel my core working, but wasn't having to pay much attention to my legs until the very end. They felt light and strong. I thought about my posture, and played with my lean a bit. Mainly I ran at the pace where my lungs were just staying on top of things. No panting or gasping, but deep, even breaths. I would have had to time my words carefully, especially towards the end. My legs could have run faster, and I didn't wear a heart rate monitor. If I'd put a time to it, I'd say I was aiming for a 6:30/K pace.

What made it easy to feel my core was where the front waist of the tights goes. It's right at the natural fold when I'm touching my toes, and is maybe a cm lower than other tights I've worn. So there was a small patch of skin that was feeling shirt instead of pants, which changed how my core felt. The legs were snug on my thighs, and fit really well. MEC didn't have any in Large tall, and I think that would have been the perfect fit. These are a few mm short in the legs. They don't seem to want to slide down, which was my second biggest concern. The biggest was plumbers crack, and there's none of that by a healthy margin. There is extra material for the seat.

The route goes down the 37 st path and through Fish Creek. Not many people out. I was feeling really good here, running steady, fixing little things as my inner shark pointed them out. Keeping my back straight, shoulders relaxed, elbows back, chin down, all that sort of stuff. Even then I could tell I was having a good run. Coming back up 24th St is a big hill and I slowed down there a bit, but tried to keep my feet moving fast by taking little steps. Just behind the Safeway is a yellow pole that is darn close to 6K. I looked at my watch then, expecting to see 37 to 38 minutes elapsed. It was 36:06, which is what I'd thought of up till now as race pace or nearly so. Yet I knew I could be running faster if I had to.

From there it's mostly path running along the berm, with lots of uphill. That got a bit tougher, and had to push my legs. I wanted to try to maintain the same pace, and also maintain the smooth stride, and relaxed feel I'd had so far. That was a bit of a struggle, and I could begin to feel it in my legs. My shark encouraged me by telling me how they mostly view themselves as the centre of the world around them, and the world brings stuff to them. That they stay aware of everything around them, and let their desires bring them lunch. They keep things smooth and even, doing everything from the core. They don't think about pushing harder to go faster; they desire the world to move a bit faster and it does. That helped relax my legs and find my stride again about the 7 K mark. Finished the 8K in 48:30. It wasn't so long ago that 8K in an hour damn near killed me. Today was a mostly relaxed run. I could have run longer at a slightly slower pace. I'm super pleased!

I walked another 15 minutes home, and stretched for another 15 minutes or so. Pigeon pose felt soooooo good! My legs feel fine this afternoon, no burn, no stiffness, just a little bit tired. My lungs can feel it a bit, I think I expanded them a little.

Yoga tonight has to be better than last week.