An Easy 10.

Whenever I would head back to my old team to run I would I always get the same question, "What are you doing today Cris?". My reply would always be the same, "An easy 10.". This would shock some as I would be too if I had heard this when I was in high school. Those two words never seemed to go together correctly.

When the run came it was a different story. As soon as the first step came I knew this would be far from "An easy 10". As each step came my ankle felt like it was going to snap, causing me to always have to cut my run short. An easy 10 turned into a horrible 6, with me having to stop at every light to stretch out my ankle. A run that really should have taken 45 minutes takes almost an hour. Then I stopped going. I needed to get my head together before running the old runs.

Finally I was healthy and I decided to actually try the easy 10. I arrive at the school and watch as everyone stretches. I talk to some of the returning varsity guys, they are pretty nice. I talk to my sort of protege' Luis and ask about his mileage. Turns out he is behind 1 mile so I invite him to come with me. He agrees and we go. This was going to actually be an easy day for me. It's not that the kid is slow, far from it. Since he arrived in high school Luis has been breaking our class records. First breaking our freshman Mt. Sac record,then the 2 mile record. He will eventually set every class record and be the fastest runner to come from our school. The thing that sets him apart from the rest of the fast freshman that have come to our school is his determination. He strives to do his best everyday and has to be one of the most humble people I have met. It's his second year and he has no coach so I began giving him some of my earlier workouts. He will probably top off at 60 this summer. So for his first high mileage summer I can be forcing him on the runs. He's quick but not at the point to be putting down 6 minute pace on runs. So finally I can keep myself from racing another run.

We begin running and are running pretty calmly, talking about running and stuff. Around 3 miles we get into a conversation about German Fernandez. GF came before his time but his enthusiasm as he described the two mile reminds me of how I was when I began getting into all this stuff. It's nice to know he is learning his history. We get to the 5 mile mark at 40:40, 8:05 pace. I needed this kind of recovery run. We head downhill still going pretty good. We about to get to the street that leads to the school when something happens. Crash! Luis drops. I guess a wire clipped him and down he went. He caught himself but he knee took some of the fall as well. He insists we keep going and we finish the run at 1 hour 20 minutes.

Total: 10 miles
Week Total: 29 miles.