I run and I run

I try to get out for a run at least three times every week. For about two years now my routine has been to run exactly an hour. The reason for this is simple: I used to run 45 minutes, but one day I tried running an hour, discovered I could handle it, and felt like a wimp from that point on if I ran even a minute less than an hour. Since then I've lived in fear of proving to myself that I can run more than an hour for fear that I'd have to do it every time. Today I ran an hour fifteen, and it turned out to be pretty easy, so it's pretty certain I've now doomed myself to an extra quarter hour of pounding the pavement every time I head out.

I love the neighborhood I live in for the jogging. There is a really quiet neighborhood north of us that I can use for doing intervals - run fast down one block, then slow down the next, back and forth like switchbacks. North of that is the Zoopark, so named because it was the site of the Düsseldorf Zoo until WWII. And if I run northeast from the park a way, I can get into a forest that's crisscrossed with trails. I haven't been in there yet, but for a while now I've had the suspicion that I could run ten miles in two hours if I really tried, and I'm thinking of heading to the woods to get out of the sun when I try it.

If I manage it, I just hope my brain will forgive me if I don't run two hours every time after that.