How Do You Determine Which Route to Run?
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Go with the flow. Grip it and rip it. Do it-to it. Pick whatever verb-subject rhyme combination you would like but the motto still means the same thing, just go for it. I have recently borrowed a Garmin Forerunner 205 from a friend and have been loving the freedom I have now when I run. I don’t have to run a pre-planned course in order to run my desired distance. I can run whereever I want and feel like! I am still learning all the capabilities of this product and will blog more about it as I learn but what I want to focus on right now is the freedom you get by knowing exactly what the distance you have run. I have always felt that I could predict how far I ran with in half a mile and know the time I ran within + or – 30 seconds, but now I can say how far I ran, and at what pace, with confidence. Not that I didn’t say my guess with confidence before.
One of my favorite things about running is exploring new areas. You don’t get the same understanding of your surroundings when you are flying past in a car. It takes a run to notice and appreciate everything. Although its tough for me because I run by so fast but I seem to manage. This weekend I ran a route that I had run before but I was searching for another trail that breaks off of the normal path. I knew what I wanted to accomplish: 10 miles and find a new trail, but I only had an idea of what route I should take to get there. I quickly looked at a map before I left the house but ended up missing the turn I was looking for on my run. I decided to continue, I had a Garmin Forerunner 205 so I was going to be able to run the distance I desired. I would just Go with the Flow. The first thing I did was follow signs to a Museum that I had heard of but had never been to before. I ran to it and now know exactly where the museum is. Next I saw a couple of runners running on the awkward side of the road so I decided to run over there. Grip it and Rip it. This lead me about to a 3-4 mile trail run right next to the road I had driven on and run by about 50 times! The trails were great and really neat. I’ll run those again for sure. After that I had run just over 5 miles and needed to head back towards the house. I noticed a smaller trail off of the main path which I had never seen before. Do it-to it. I ran up it and it ended up leading me to the front of the club house of a municipal golf course I had seen numerous times but had never played. Yeah, that’s right, I don’t mind playing Municipal Golf Courses. I’ll even run on them too! I pay taxes just like everyone else.
The point here is that I knew what I wanted to accomplish and had an idea of how to get there; but when that didn’t work out how I had planned, I adjusted, continued on, and ended up accomplishing more things than I had set out to do. There’s no blueprint to making decisions about your run or your life. We all have many decisions to make along the life run. Usually the decisions that seem insignificant end up being significant and the ones that we assume will determine if we accomplish our goals may not be that important. You determine what route you take and how you will run down it. There is no right or wrong path, just make sure you have a GPS of some sort so track your progress along the way to accomplishing your goals.