Getting the Miles Up

I’ve not blogged in a while, but I’ve been continuing to run. Still, I have been running a little less of late—about 10 miles per week instead of the 18 I was doing earlier in the summer. Since I’m running the Philadelphia Half-Marathon on November 21, it’s time for me to get serious about getting my miles up.

In the winter and spring, as I trained for the Broad Street Run, I was able to get my miles up in the mornings, thanks to a work schedule that enabled me to go in later two or three day a week. Unfortunately, we changed our schedules around, so, if I’m going to run in the morning, I must wake up at 5:30. Thus far, all efforts to recalibrate my body clock have failed: I can’t seem to fall asleep until between 11 p.m. and midnight.

This also means that I’m going to have to run in the evenings. The Wissahickon Valley, alas, is therefore unavailable to me during the week, so I must, as they say, take to the streets.

Tonight, I made a virtue of necessity—actually necessities—and, taking advantage of a trip to return books to the Chestnut Hill branch of the Philadelphia Free Library, used that location as my point of departure for a night-time run through West Chestnut Hill. I had one of the most enjoyable runs that I ever had on streets.

Running at night in Chestnut Hill, I became aware of two types of neighborhood streets: those that have almost no traffic and those that are wide enough for the small amount of two-way traffic to coexist with runners. Since I resolutely refuse to run on concrete (that is, sidewalks), I was happy to find that I could run the entire distance safely without having to leave the pavement.

This is not to suggest, of course, that tonight’s run was without challenges. Although the humidity was moderate, the temperature was in the low 80s. Given that I’d not as regularly in the last few weeks as I would have liked, I also found that I was exerting a bit more effort to run four miles than I should have expected. This might not be too surprising, though: the first 2.4 miles were downhill, while the last 1.6 miles went back up.  Had I known this, perhaps I would have started at the 2.4 mile point (by Springside).

All in all, I had a good run. While I seldom run on pavement, I’m afraid that this will be my only option on weekdays through the fall and winter. If my knee doesn’t complain, I’ll be fine.