Training Log Archive: iansmith

I have very infrequently seen the coast of Massachusetts, despite that I've lived within ten miles of it for almost five years now. So, I ran to Fort Independence Park - a nearby location overlooking Boston Harbor - via Summer St. It was a good run - I alternated between three and four breaths per step, and felt generally good throughout the run. The pace was much gentler than my miserable reintroduction to running and pain yesterday. I paused for a few minutes at Fort Independence to take in the sight (which although obscured by some islands, was serene and charming) and read the South Boston Korean War memorial.

In the vein of the memorial, I adamantly believe that there are some things worth fighting for, and that at times war is a reasonable recourse. However, the Civil War General Sherman - a master of warfare - aptly put it when he said "War is hell." To some extent, especially in the United States, war has been sterilized - war is a push of a button, a list of names in the newspaper, an article about bombs going off and people lives somewhere far away. Even the Iraq war, while it has brought personal loss and economic hardship at home, and calamity and chaos to Iraq, when compared with World War II abroad and the American Civil War domestically, has brought only a fraction of the misery and death. How much of this hardship is a direct consequence of avoidable factors? How much does our own stubbornness, stupidity, and unwillingness to acknowledge other groups and ideas as meaningful contribute to the steady grinding of resources, men, and values into oblivion? While there are things worth fighting for, how much cause for war do we ourselves create?

Anyway, I listened to a sermon on Colossians 3 and the Enchanted soundtrack. Ran in my black running suit. I carried an orange from my start, and ate it at Fort Independence. It was satisfying. Afterwards, I had a slurpee. It was magnificent.

After a 20 day hiatus from running, I have started a new regimen with the intent to run the blue course on 30 March - the first o-meet of the year for me. I haven't planned well.

I was much more fatigued than I expected, and apparently, I've lost my pacing calibrations. I thought I was running a 9 minute mile pace (5:30 km). This might account for my weakness.

Unsurprisingly, everything felt terrible today - my breathing, my muscles, and my endurance were all more pained and weak than any run in recent memory. Seven days to go!

Consider this name for a pet (dog, cat, or quite possibly guinea pig): Field Marshall Siegfried von Wilhelm