Life getting in the way of running

Well not really in the big picture but it sure has these last couple of weeks. I have been playing a lot of music lately with several bands I am in as well as some others. I have talked quite a bit about how running before rehearsals is really hard for me. The level of exhaustion I experience after a hard run makes it really hard to concentrate on what I need to do for playing music. Notes tend to blur together, I forget to read key signatures, etc. So these last two weeks have been hard for me to get all the practice in along with the running. I have found that it is not ALL running that is the problem just the harder workouts. Hydration seems to play a part in it as well. For example yesterday I ran for a couple miles with my running partner who is coming back from a substantial injury to her hip that she suffered abut six months ago. This is her second attempt to come back from it. Hopefully this is the one that takes! Back to the example, last night I was able to play this benefit concert and solo just fine. It was the largest crowd I have played in front of since college football and it was a hoot! Huge bunch of screaming and singing people and me belting out the sax solo from Careless Whisper (it was an 80s love song concert from seven local bands.)

Today’s run started out with no real plan in mind. After an unplanned diversion to find a bathroom I decided to go for a long run and ended up doing 10.5 miles and a pretty slow pace (which was fine. I was actually under 10 min miles until the very end when I started to get pretty tired.) I did feel like I could have kept going if I had to (or if I was doing a half-marathon). I am thinking I’d like to do another this year sometime. We’ll see. This was actually the third day of running in a row, so I am back on track from a little (4 day) break.