The Death Run

It's been two weeks since my run out at Inks Lake, where I had a fabulous run and felt great doing it. I was on top of my running world, but since then it's all come crashing down. I've run about 5 times since then, each time feeling worse and worse. Maybe I need some time off, maybe its the 100+ temperatures, or maybe it's mental. Or maybe it's a combination of these things.

This morning I decided to head out for a tough hilly run, to see if I could break out of my funk. I ran Melissa's Davenport Death run. I figured it must be tough if Melissa ran on it. Besides it shares hills with another common running route called "The Inferno" and "The Run From Hell." Words like "death," "inferno," and "hell" sound like too much fun not to do, and I knew I had to push myself through it, or I'd just keep going on with these crappy runs.

The first mile was easy, some tough hills on Austin's scale, but nothing too bad. I picked up the pace for the next 2 miles and the hills got tougher. By 30 minutes in, I was spent. Here we go again, I thought. I slowed down, but not much, and I tried to focus on getting up the hills comfortably and recovering on the downhills. By 60 minutes in, I was good to go. If that wasn't a fluke, then I'd say I'm back to my old self. I sure hope so, Pike's Peak is coming up in less than a month.

I'll be heading out to Bandera next weekend for some more good running. I can't wait to get there, last time was the toughest run I'd ever had, but I had a blast doing it. It's beautiful Texas Hill Country out there.