Over and over…

One struggle for many runners is finding new scenery and training routes to avoid monotony. Since most of us work within geographic and time limitations in our lives, we find routes nearby that we enjoy but that we may use over and over again. Don’t despair, there is much to enjoy from running the same road or trail repeatedly. This may involve tuning in to music or a podcast (but do so safely and mind your surroundings) yet there are visual ways to keep yourself engaged while running.

Changes in the season alter our views dramatically. In the spring and summer in our area, you might see blue herons and muskrats and in the fall and winter, it’s thousands of geese. Year-round, there are owls and coyotes on the move. From November through March you might see what everything looks like after a heavy wet snow versus a howling blizzard. The vegetation takes on a different look depending on whether there’s been sufficient rain. The trail has various personalities based on the amount of water that has changed it.

Most places vary in their appearance, usually just a little, every day. Running at different times allows you to see the trail or path in different kinds of light, whether it’s from the sun, your headlamp, or, if you’re fortunate, the brilliance of a full moon. Every type of light, from early dawn to the middle of the afternoon to sundown, gives everything a slightly altered look.

Beyond natural differences, there are the human-caused ones. The other day, I was running along a familiar path and there was a bag of fresh bagels next to the trail with no one in sight. Were they forgotten, were they left there on purpose? Next to a sidewalk I go along frequently, there’s an outdoor pool in an apartment complex that hasn’t been drained since last summer. Questionable maintenance standards? One evening there were four kids on bikes who were all attached to a makeshift trailer and speeding down the trail. This was clearly an act of creativity but who knows what they were up to?

If I’m focused more on speed training, I don’t notice anything except the watch and how I feel. The upside of repeating the same route on these workouts is comparing my times with prior ones and making goals for future ones.

Running familiar paths will bring many benefits, even if it’s just the knowledge you’re on a trail or road that you know well and that you’ll get in a run that you’ll be pleased with on some level. Enjoying the new amid the familiar can occur in many parts of our lives and repeating routes allows us to see that balance played out well.

While running a standard predawn route this morning, there was nothing too unusual but I did I catch the familiar scent of the fried chicken being cooked at King Soopers. On that note, I’m heading to dinner and here is this week’s food review (not fried chicken):

Running food review of the week: (note–gels, bars, chews, and other items affect everyone differently. Try them on a short run before using them for a key training run or race): Chocolate Coconut Roctane Gu: I’m not a big coconut fan but I figured I would test this one. In situations where it would have been impolite to decline a coconut-flavored dessert, I’ve eaten coconut cake, pie, etc. This tasted a lot like those, with a dash of chocolate. For those of you who like coconut, this bodes well, as there was positive feedback at these various dinner parties for the coconut-flavored desserts. The wind was up the day I used this and I had run hard the day before yet I felt good. While the taste was not to my liking, I think this product would be good for those who like coconut.