Going For The Goal

Between watching Grace in the morning and going to the Raymond Independence Day festivities in the evening (plus an afternoon nap with the monster that I refuse to feel guilty about), I wasn't able to make it out to Beckemeyer on Saturday. But Sunday was a new day and with the encouragement of my beautiful wife Mary, I did run some today. For some reason my knees felt like someone hit them with a sledge hammer, so the first few laps were pretty rough as I pretty much just ran the front straightaway and part of the back.

After three laps, I decided to try something different. Big Dawg Dare veteran Bill Flemming recommended that I strengthen my ankles before the race because running on asphalt is much different than running on grass. With this in mind, I took a detour for the final 15 minutes of my workout. The playground at Beckemeyer has two soccer goals located in the yard, probably 75 or 80 feet apart. To get used to running on grass, I decided to run from one goal to the next, then walk back, lather, rinse and repeat. 

I'm not sure how many times I did this, but probably close to 10 or 12. I noticed right off that there is a huge difference in the two surfaces, which was pointed out even further when I almost rolled my ankle on my first step. By the end though, I think I adapted pretty well and the only other time I almost hurt myself was when I relaxed too much and landed awkwardly on my next to last run.

Maybe I'm going about this the wrong way, but I think doing other things besides just running is really going to help me at the Big Dawg Dare, even if I'm not quite in 5K shape. My brother Daniel recommended running stairs as well, so I'll probably try to do that sometime this week. I have a feeling that I won't look much like Sylvester Stallone during that famous Rocky scene on the stairs, but as long as I don't trip and fall down them, I reckon I'll be happy.

Days til the Dare: 20