Sunday morning I awoke a tad after 9 a.m., no longer able to sleep. I Keuriged myself some coffee and slapped together a Nutella and peanut butter tortilla, and set about to fill out some reports for work. I resisted my typical urge to check out Facebook, Twitter or ESPN.com, because I didn’t want to be rudely greeted with the results of the Australian Open final between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. To my delighted surprise, I found shortly after turning on the TV that the ESPN “Instant Classic” replay was already in progress. Score!

The work I needed to get done was not a great amount, and I found myself torn between two worlds at about 11 a.m. I was finished working, but the match was still going on (in its fourth hour and still only nearing the end of the fourth set). I had planned on heading out for a good long run as soon as wrapping up my work, but how could I possibly leave if the match were to go into a fifth set between the top two players in the game right now?

The simple answer: I couldn’t. As the match entered set No. 5, I tried to think of a way that I could more easily justify my sitting around at home rather than getting out for a run… Perfect! A large pile of laundry needed to be folded. That was my ticket to sticking around the house to watch the fifth set in its entirety while still being productive and not feel like I was just sitting on my ass rather than getting in a good run.

In the end, I’m glad I did stick around for the conclusion of the match. It was a great match to watch, if not more than a little over-dramaticized by Chris Fowler and Patrick McEnroe. I don’t know that I agree that Nadal and Djokovic “rededfined the limits of what is physically possible,” though I will say that to see them both play at such a high level so long, at the end of a grueling two weeks, was very impressive. I sometimes wonder if American tennis analysts are worse than other tennis analysts and their grandeose descriptions, or if it’s just a part of tennis analysis to over-sell it. Oh well…

As soon as the match was over I was already getting the shoes on, filling up the bottle and stuffing my pockets with some HoneyStinger banana gel for a good long run. I’ve been gradually upping my weekend time out running over the last few weeks. Two weekends ago, I logged my typical daily hour on Saturday, followed by two on Sunday, Last weekend, I did 1.5 hours Saturday and 2.5 Sunday. This weekend, I made it out for two runs, each close to an hour on Saturday, and logged a wonderful 3 hours after the Nadal-Djokovic match Sunday.

Heading out the door I was certainly feeling a bit more juiced up than normal on Sunday, and I’m sure it was becuase my mind was flooded with images of the match. I hit my groove early and stayed in it for entire 3 hours and change I was out, even feeling surprisingly strong over the final 30 or so minutes.

I love long runs, but simply running around pancake-flat Alamosa is not  prospect that ever manages to get my pumped for a good long effort. It tends to take a good 15 minutes to really start enjoying being out, and I tend to start really wanting a chance of scenery, or for the run to be over, after two hours. But that wasn’t the case yesterday, as the right motivation made all the difference in the world.