Notes
Huge moral victory...! Today, now almost three months after the painful Shore Road 12-miler that set me back two of those months, I'm able to "set right what once went wrong," to learn from the lessons my body has had to teach me and to hopefully grow better as a runner and as a spiritual human being - Today I return to the Shore Road route with M and do it right. Despite M's inclination to not push this course just yet, I definitely need to make my peace with the past (remembering De Lint's short story "This is Radio Clash" recently read, to boot) and properly start anew, and I could not be more thankful. With the one exception of my wearing the Vibrams, which I am beginning to anticipate wearing for the Hartford Half-Marathon, everything is in keeping with last time's outing, just now done with a touch more wisdom - Hydration, particularly, is included with the 12-ounce Gatorade bottle I carry in hand and consume throughout the run, and both pace and any twinges of tightness/pain are respected and addressed IMMEDIATELY as they appear, allowing for a strong and unbelievably satisfying finish not even a minute behind M's amazingly strong final two mile stretch. Even the moderate amounts of soreness that remain at run's end in my legs, ankles, and feet are immensely uplifting for me, as they have all the hallmarks of uniform, normal exertion without being focused in one particularly injured or inflamed region, and this makes all the difference in the world for me. Thanks hugely to all involved for a simply outstanding experience, and I'm now not only solidly on track for Hartford in another month, but even just for the natural progression of my training along all its outward and inward levels as well...