I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon.

First, sometime in the last four to eight weeks, I went to Murray Park to run on a Wednesday night. I got a little bored of my usual routes, and thought a visit to the old MHS course would be fun. I didn’t have enough time for a full 3 mile run, and I left my Garmin at home, so I just started around the 0.75 mark. Up the hill, let gravity carry me down, and there’s the 1.0 mark. The place where a runner from Green River was at 4:15, and I thought for sure he was going to fail to complete the race (he shattered the course record). Then over the creek, through the parking lot, then up the next hill to the old horse track. The horse track that is now soccer fields and an ice rink. Along what would have been the old route, as close as I could approximate, I realized I was still running fast. My sides were burning, but my feet kept moving, my strides stayed long, and my coach’s voice kept echoing in my brain, “Mind over matter. Keep your heels coming in at your ankles. Keep your jaw relaxed. Relax your hands….” I wished I had had my Garmin, because I would like to know how fast I ran it. Faster than I had been running, for certain.

Fast forward to almost two weeks ago. I joined the UFC gym, but often I don’t make it there in time for class, so I just go for a run, then come back and do bag work. I have run from the gym three times now, just a quick 1.3 mile run or so. This is an area we ran in on our longer runs in high school. I seem to not be able to keep myself from running fast. I’m still slower than I was in high school, but I’m faster than I remember being in recent years. Again, I’ve not had my Garmin with me.

It seems that running where I used to run in high school brings back to my body memories of running fast. I’m liking it. Oh, and it probably helps that in the past month, after I decided to make a rule of no eating after 22:00, and I’m following it about 85% of the time, I have lost almost twenty pounds.