Training Day 11: 9km, 55min

It was the run after the looooooong run. It was good. It was fun. And, yeah, I had on new biker shorts I bought yesterday. Just perfect.
The usual: alarm off at 4.59am, started running at 5:17am blah blah blah.
At the start, it felt as if the ground was whipping my heels - I could feel the impact all the way to the back of the head but it petered out as I approached the now famous river.
It was also chilly. I had - surprise, surprise - a teary eye and some almost running nose. These two forced me to every now and then reach for the lower part of the t-shirt to do a wiping or two... but did little to hamper my running.
Unlike the previous mornings, visibility was very poor - maybe some fog/mist was in the air, couldn't tell. Mercifully, traffic was almost non-existent but for the huge lorries up the hill after the river. One advantage of these lorries was that they had their lights on so as I ran up the hill and by the dumpsite, I didn't have to worry about some mugger or such.
Anyway, it was a faster run going by the way I took up the hills. I love those hills and what they do to my legs and my psyche. I’ll keep running up those hills for as long as I'm able. I guess that is one reason I get up early to run.
I set out to do an hour, split two-way, 30 min each. I got to the roundabout and back. I was to run till the alarm sounded then turn back for a complete run.
I had quite some energy. Going back uphill was a breeze and enjoyable.
In all I met 15 runners - most of them after 540am - I guess that is the best time for them. I wonder if it is possible to get them all together so we can be running as a team. That would be awesome.
Going by my speed today, I did 55min and not an hour as I'd planned. I'll do a make up on Thursday - 5 minutes to be added to the one hour run.
So far so good. Eight more kilometres, 55 minutes done. Great.
Talking of great, Jack was telling me about this guy who does 210km a week; two-f****ng-hundred-and-ten kilometres, halllooo!!!!! He also runs quite fast. What’s more, he runs like twice a day - morning and evening. And you thought I was crazy!
This brings to mind Jack’s insistence on putting the miles on the legs – or some such expression. That, for now, what is important is to cover as many kilometers as is possible. With time, the body gets used to running for longer and before you know it, doing 21km becomes the norm then you break it down intellectually (to borrow a phrase from Comedian Chris Rock), you work on speed, you improve on your breathing, you push and push until … until you just get those damn 21km in 90 minutes flat.

PS
It's official: Lewa is out for me and the crew at the office but our co-ordinator is talking of going to run around lake Elementaita. Those who are going will leave on Friday at 9am to be back on Sunday. I'm not going - I have a 21km run to do on Saturday.