Ape Man!

Thursday 18th November 2010: Day 3

3.36 Miles. 24 Mins, 11 Secs.

After yesterdays run of eight and half miles I decided todays run would only be no more then three and half miles. Eight and half miles is a distance that I can do without much hardship but with this Sundays 10k race lined up I thought it would be best to keep the milage low. Two reasons for this is as I am in the first two weeks of my running streak it would be sensible to ease my legs into it and also I am keen to aim for a personal best at this Sundays 10k race held in Brighton. I did this 10k race last year and enjoyed it so much I signed up again for this years race.

For todays run, I ran a route that I was more then familiar with. This route was my first regular running route that I used to run when I first took up running.

To run this route I traveled to my parents house to pay them a visit and of course had packed my running gear as I knew I wanted to revisit this route that I had enjoyed running so much in the past.

On the way to my parents I stopped by at the local library to see what books of interest I might want to pick up. On my arrival I soon found a book with a subject matter that I had become more interested in since becoming a runner. The title of the book was, "Ape Man." It is a book about the story of human evolution. I have become interested in this subject because it ties in with the running man hypothesis. The idea that early man used to run his prey to death. These ideas always makes me think that us humans are far better runners then we think! For early man there was no mordern sports drinks or gels. Early man did not own a training diary where he could pencil in rest days. It was just a matter of life and death for him! If he and his family were hungry they had to go out and hunt and they had no idea how long they would spend the day on their feet to catch their prey. Running for early man was a skill that he had to take care of. It was something that was very valuable to him and his family.

Whilst running my old running route that day I couldn't help but think of these ideas and wonder if what I'm doing is somehow tapping into that same endurance that early man had to use on a daily basis.