Boring Routes

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 There are miles and miles of roadways within striking distance of my front door. Side streets galore. But lately I've been sticking to the main roads because they are predictably dry or at least slightly less textured. I'm also adjusting my usual "one big loop" approach so I end passing my house (or at least my street) more once or more than once on a run. I've  started to do this on purpose now because of the mental toughness it is building. It's tempting to bail when my house is right there, but I've got to fight a little bit with that mental status. During the Detroit Marathon and the Bay Shore Marathon, the toughest part felt like the stretches where I could see people on the other side of the street that were miles ahead of me. 

Today this played out over the course of a 2mi warm up, 5x(1km @5k-10pace, 400m recovery). The warm up and first interval were part of a loop, but after that I just ran up and down my block over and over again until the cool down when I cut through the neighborhood. I need to fight through the "well, maybe I'll just do 4 intervals and call it good. It's zero degrees out." I became familiar with the 1-2km strip on both sides of the road and it felt nice to know I'd have good footing for the duration of the work out. It took a little bit of the tension of out of my body.

I am accepting boring routes are ok and I've just got to get through the next few weeks of winter. Lots of miles ahead.





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