Milestones

photo courtesy of kenkilfedder

I ran 14 miles on Saturday!  It’s my longest. run. ever.  At least until two weeks from now when I run 17.

We are in uncharted waters now.  I am running distances that I said I would *never* run.

I ran this one solo.  The people I have been running with on Saturdays were running, but they usually do 5:1 intervals and I know that is just too much for me at long distances.  Can you say BURN OUT.  I would die at mile 5.  I also needed to go s-l-o-w.

I decided to go with 2:1 intervals and that turned out to be the sweet spot.  I ran all of the intervals comfortably.  I wasn’t feeling tired at the end of each interval and had no problem running when the watch beeped for the next run.  All signs that this was the right timing for me on that day.  Another good sign was my heart rate was in Zone 4 for the majority of my run!

The first 8 miles were a breeze.  As usual at mile 9 my hips and knees were starting to complain.  Not too bad though.  Mile 10 I stopped by my car and dropped off some water bottles.  I also got the rocks out of my shoes (the only downside to running on the ATT).

As I set off for the last 4 miles I had to break it down into smaller chunks in my head.

Just make it two miles and then you get to turnaround.  Just make it through this 2 minute interval and you get to walk.

At 11.5 miles my legs and knees were really starting to scream.  I was having flash backs of the pain I was in at the end of my half marathon.  At mile 12 I was feeling THE WALL trying to push me back.  I ate some sport beans and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.  For the first time in the run I walked through a running interval.  The extended break helped.

At mile 13 I forced myself to push.  I picked up the pace and ran the last 3 running intervals as fast as I could.  All 3 were at a 9 min/mile pace or faster.  I had to prove to myself that my mind could overrule my body.  After those 3 running intervals, I was spent.  I was so happy to see my car.

14 miles – 3:06:00 – Avg pace 13:19 min/mile.

My other major milestone.  I ran 71 miles in the month of July.

SEVENTY ONE!

Amazing.

12 miler

This past Saturday I set out for my 12 miler with Amy.  She was kind enough to accompany me for 7.5 miles on my long run (Thanks again Amy!).  I wasn’t all that worried about the distance since I had done 10.5 just a couple of weeks ago.  I did want to make sure that I was well prepared for the distance though.  I ran 6 miles last weekend and it did not go well (not enough sleep, not enough food and just a bad run day).  I got up bright and early at 5:45 a.m. since we were meeting at 7.  I had a new flavor of Gu to try, Tri-berry and some Gu Chomps.  My fuel belt was full of ice water.  I was ready to go.

I must have misread some directions for my Garmin when I first got it because I thought that if I set it for intervals it wouldn’t track pace and distance anymore, I was wrong about that.  Anyway, I had tested out the interval timing with my watch on a midweek run and set it up for 3:1 intervals for our long run.  Those were going well for a good portion of the run.

We fueled at mile 4 and that is when I realized that I had lost a whole unopened pack of Chomps.  I had the Gu still, but my fuel for the rest of the run was gone…uh oh.  I decided to shake it off and tried not to dwell on it and gave the Tri-berry a go.  It was MUCH better than the chocolate.  The texture is still very pudding like, but I was able to get past that with the flavor.  I can overcome the texture issue with the use of water.

I was scanning the trail after our turnaround in hopes of finding where my Chomps had bounced out of my fuel belt pouch, but never did see them.  About mile 6, I was really feeling tired in the last minute of the 3 minutes of running, so I decided to drop down to 2:1 intervals.  Those were much better for the rest of the run.  At 7.5 I waved bye to Amy and continued on.  By mile 8 I was feeling the effects of no fuel and the heat.  I wasn’t feeling bad, but I knew I was going to have to walk through some of my running intervals.  I did and that’s okay.  The point is to be on your feet for that long, not how fast you finish.  Plus, without any fuel I figured it was best to conserve energy.  Towards the end of the run as I was just trying to make it back to my car I kept using the mantra, you can do anything for a minute.  What is really funny about this is, I used this mantra when I was in labor to get through contractions.  The pain at the end of a 12 miler is nothing close to labor, but you gotta do whatever works.  Running is mostly mental.

As I neared the parking lot at the end of my run I heard the sound of gravel crunching and a bike desperately trying to stop right behind me.  There was no one beside me and nothing blocking a biker from going around me and so I turned, freaked out and pissed off to find a kid of about 12 years old about an inch from running me over with his bike.  I said “WHAT IS YOUR DEAL?” and the kid just gives me a dumb look.  His father or the adult he is with finally says to him, just go around.  The kid finally starts to go around WITHOUT EVER SAYING A WORD TO ME.  So, I had to say to the group of them – you need to call out before you HIT someone.  Jeez.  Teach your kids some trail etiquette before you go biking on a VERY busy trail with runners, horse back riders and other bikers.  It was only after I told them they needed to call out that the ADULT with them finally apologized for almost creaming me.  Nothing like almost having a bike up your butt to get your heart rate even higher than it already was.

Even with the lost fuel and bike incident, I survived.  12 miles in 2:35:00 with an avg. pace of 12:54 per mile.

With a little help from my friends

My long run of 9 miles last weekend was actually pretty awesome.  As you all know I have been hating summer.  The weather didn’t change, but I did have something to keep my mind off of the heat and soupy air, new running friends!  An awesome chick that is an HR Manager for another game company locally invited me along to run with her group this past weekend.  Now that I am getting over my fear of running with others I said, hell yeah!  It helps that we had discussed running a bit before and I knew that she ran the same pace as me AND uses the Galloway method.  Her group was doing 7 miles and so I just tacked on 2 more after I finished running with them.  We chatted it up the whole time and sometimes would get so into our conversation, we would forget we were running!  I am really starting to dig this running with others thing.  Doing long runs alone will be difficult now that I have found the joy of meeting and running with new people!

I also got to run on the American Tobacco Trail for the first time.  LOVE!  It is flat, shaded and is dirt which = soft on my knees/ankles/hips.  I am looking forward to going back!

9 miles took me an hour and 55 minutes.  Avg pace of 12:48 per mile.  That is actually a bit faster than I am supposed to be running on the long runs, but I just wasn’t paying attention to pace since I was too busy talking!

Good Day Sunshine

Photo courtesy of Mr. Thomas

I have started back on my effort of getting up early and running in the morning to avoid the oppressive mid day heat.  Getting out of bed is always a challenge.  This morning my internal monologue went something like this – Gotta get up.  It’s already past 7 and it will take me at least 40 minutes to run a little over 3 miles.  Oh, pillow…so comfortable.  Just a few more minutes.  Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz…(alarm blares again).  Gotta get up.  Gotta get up.  Zzzzzzzzzzz…(alarm blares again).  Gotta get up.  Gotta get up.

I finally shuffled out of bed and got ready.  I am starting to think that the people that sleep in their running clothes have a good idea going there.  I can’t sleep in my sports bra though…that would be majorly uncomfortable.

I really  need to get up a bit earlier so I can enjoy my morning run a bit more.  As it stands right now I am ALWAYS rushing myself to get home so I can get ready for work.  Not exactly the feeling I want when I am trying to do this activity to relieve stress and not create it.  I still feel good after my run, but it isn’t they same kind of feeling I get on an afternoon run when I am not in a big hurry.

My April total ended up being – 38 miles.  Not bad and better than March (31 miles) but it could be better.  Robin had a great idea to run on the odd days in May.  I am going to give it my best shot.  Even if I don’t run on every odd day, I will do my best to get in some form of exercise.  Thanks for the motivation Robin!