Destination Running

Today I learned a new running slang term for my favorite kind of running: 'Destination Running'

Sad to say, destination running is not taking a trip to Hawaii or the Keys or maybe East Asia to don lycra & make a fool of yourself on foreign roads. Of course, I am sure I'd love that kind of destination running even more than the kind I am actually talking about, but unfortunately, it's not in the budget.

So, 'destination running' is running to some objective, rather than in circles around a park. I have naturally been drawn to 'out and back' routes or long single loop routes. It just hadn't occured to me that it would be pleasant to run in small circles around a park or neighborhood. Actually, that sounds like some sort of hell. Besides the obvious boredom factor, my primary motivator for obsessively using GoogleEarth and mapmyrun.com to devise the perfect out-n-back or even better, loop, for the planned mileage for the day's run. . . is that I am pretty darn sure that if I passed my car doing a loop de loop over and over. . . that I'd, uh, get in my car well before I completed my planned mileage. I do have some self control, but I am pretty sure I don't have that much.

So far all my longer runs, and every new longest-ever distance, has been an irrevocable you're-X-miles-from-the-car: run it or walk it, but you're doing it! Of course, with it being in the 20s or so most days, walking for more than 10 min in sweaty running clothes would get REALLY cold, so it's pretty much a given that I am gonna do the distance once I start, lol.

Another aspect I like about destination running is that I think of my run as various legs, each with its own destination. . .I find it very motivating to cover new territory and have various landmarks to count by, so I think of the run in sections.

For example, my first 10 mile run tomorrow morning has 9 segments (really 11):
1) the mile out my quiet street and then up another busier road (This is really two segments in my head, the first half mile is nice on my residential road, then the only yucky half mile of the run. . . up a busier country road that also sports some nasty hills to warm up on, lol)
2) mile 2 on a lovely quiet road to my meeting point with a friend & water swigs
3) half mile to the loop
4) 2 mi first half of loop
5) 1 mi RT out and back spur down a new-to-me road
6) 2 mi second half of the loop
7) half mile to drop of my friend & get water bottle
8&9) 2 mi victory lap back home via steps 2 & 1 in reverse order.

So, really, there is no part of the run that is more than a couple miles.

Step by step. . . by step. . . by step. . . I'll make it home. I hope.

So, how do I run 10 miles? 20,000 ish steps? One step at a time. Same way as I ran my first minute. . . my first K, my first mile. Same way I'll run 26.2 someday soon. . .