Slow Zone II

In my continuing effort to bump up my weekly mileage, this morning I did another "Slow Zone" run. I left my Garmin at home and just set out to lollygag for three or four miles. Often when I run I put pressure on myself to hit speed and/or distance goals, or at least to forego walk breaks. But the purpose of a Slow Zone run is to forget about all that. (Its other purpose it to recover from a longer run performed the day before by just getting the blood moving without courting injury by being too zealous).

Not much was going on at 5:45 this morning, a circumstance that is perfect for S-Z running. On yesterday's long-ish run, before I'd gone a mile I saw a spaced-out young couple sitting on a blanket on the ground at the local tennis court, sheltering a candle from the breeze and looking very solemn, like people who had been up all night and had deep matters on their mind. Not long after I passed them I heard another couple--age indeterminate--shouting angrily in a parking lot I passed. I kept my head down and kept going; I was on a mission to fulfill a promise I'd made to myself for a long, swift run. 

None of that distracting stuff going on today. It was all just "hello, birds," "hello, squirrels," "good morning, sun." I've read that it's liberating to run untimed and unhurried, but I'm not sure I've ever bought into that. That is, not until I invented the Slow Zone run. This could get to be a weekly habit.