Taper Time Begins with a Challenge

Since I started training, I've noticed that my body sometimes craves weird things.  This goes beyond those times when I find myself hording carbs in my shopping cart, although that is one good example.  What is even weirder is when I find my body 'craving' things that have nothing to do with food.  For instance, after one of my long runs, I was getting ready to go watch my football game at the bar and I realized that my feet craved for me to wear running shoes.  Seriously.  I can't explain it any better than to say it is a craving.

Today, I had a 5-mile run.  It was supposed to be 5 miles with hills, but I didn't feel like running over in the hill neighborhood.  Several factors conspired to make me less motivated: the fact that the sun goes down at 5:30 now; the fact that I did not get home until 5; and the fact that I don't like running in the dark any more for fear of tripping and bashing up my knees (or worse).  I couldn't go running in the morning because I was in Orlando.  Yes.  Again.

I came awfully close to not doing today's run.  Probably closer than I have come before.  For one, I just wasn't in the mood.  Also, I got a massage this afternoon which helped take out all of the running kinks and I was enjoying being able to move my neck freely again (the massage finished at 4:45, hence why I did not get home until 5pm).  And the weather, while not vile, is not ideal for running.  Today's heat index was in the mid-80s.  Ugh.

However, somehow my body craved (?) going for a run around my little condo association neighborhood.  By 'little,' I mean this thing loops at 0.7 miles.  Why I wanted to do this, I don't know.  It required that I circle 7 times around the little loop, then add on a tiny bit.  But for some reason, this made me happy and it really wasn't so bad.  There is decent lighting at night here, which is not true of all neighborhoods.  I ran on the road, so no uneven sidewalks to trip me.  It is a loop, but it isn't a terrible loop as far as scenery goes.  Just chalk this up to another one of my weird 'cravings,' I guess.  And that is another 5 miles that I really did not want to run done!