Back home, back to running

The silence from this blog might've indicated that I disappeared on RAGBRAI.

I did not, but I did lose a great deal of ambition upon returning to civilized life. The intention is to put up a few posts about it; we'll see how that goes.

However, I have managed to accomplish two running goals, one of them even during this post-RAGBRAI lazyfest.

The Sunday before RAGBRAI was the last day of a lower price tier for the IMT Des Moines Half Marathon.

It seemed wrong/dangerous to sign up for a running event before I'd even completed the bike one that took months of training ... but to save about $10 or $15, I did it anyway.

Judge my frugality if you want, but my running shoes are bursting at the bunion seam, so that earlier-bird discount (a still-cheaper price expired in April) is nothing to sneeze at.

That was goal No. 1. Goal No. 2 was to go on a run this morning, and it did require some self-judgment ("you're not even sore from RAGBRAI; get off the couch, you bum") before I got going.

To my great, pleasant surprise — OK, so I did plan it to be flat and downhill — the run wasn't bad.

Before I'd finished the first mile, I was definitely feeling the rust and the head cold, prompting the standard early-part-of-training-season doubts about why I'd want to do this for 12.1 more miles.

Then I hit the gentle downhill slope and shade, though, and decided that I wouldn't need to do the run-walk combo anyway.

If I hadn't received a startling text at mile 2.5, I would've done all three — mostly in sun, humidity and heat — without stopping. Which is good, because Hal's training plan is designed to be feasible for those who can run 30 minutes nonstop.

Training officially kicks off next week. Here's hoping it goes as well as last half's training, but with a better conclusion.