Let's backtrack a bit, since I didn't write about this week's long run yet.
Sunday was 11 miles. I remember last training cycle I struggled through my 10 miler, and slogged through my 10.5 miler, and on the day I ran 11 it was like breezing along. I finished with a smile on. Similarly, I finished Sunday's 11 miler feeling strong as well. I was actually quite impressed with myself, and much like last week, I kept telling myself to pull back the pace - this was supposed to be a LSD run, btw!
I run alone. But, I figure the pace is "conversational" if I can have a conversation, out loud, with myself. OR, sing along to the songs in my head or on my ipod. Usually i run long with music, just because it's a long time. However I only did half of this run with music due to low ipod battery. No biggie.
When I got home I did some comparing. It turns out that this 11 miler was on average 43 seconds a mile faster than my 11 mile training run in May; 9 seconds a mile faster than my 10 miler last week, and 35 seconds a mile faster than my half marathon in June. WHOA! and still, it felt "easy" as far as pace, effort, etc keeping in mind it was an 11 mile run. So, I am so stoked for that. This means I'm going to PR the living daylights out of this race. :)
On to today's run. This run almost didn't happen this morning. I was kind of excited to run in the morning, outside, because I bought this new wicked neon yellow shirt to wear for the dark morning runs. So, I get up and get dressed and go pee and realize I never plugged in (or turned off) my garmin after my long run on Sunday, or my ipod. So both are dead. Ipod is not really a deal breaker, because I often do shorter outside runs sans music. However, if the garmin is dead then I can run with the ipod's stopwatch figure to get an idea on pace. I almost didn't go. I told myself I can put the run off until the afternoon. Then I thought "this is dumb, just go run and enjoy yourself." OK! So I tied up my shoes and put my water bottle in the fridge and opened the door to run 5 miles.... and it was raining. I almost didn't go again. "Really, Jen, there's no shame in running in the afternoon." Then, I just walked down the stairs and started running. It was raining pretty hard by the time I finished. But, man, oh man was that a good run. I was trucking, and I knew it - especially at the end, when I really just wanted to be dry. I didn't stop to walk, I didn't feel like dying during the hills, I wasn't obsessing about how much further I had to go or how fast I was running. I just ran, in the rain, mostly smiling (though, it's hard to smile when rain drops are landing in your eyeballs).
I used mapmyrun.com when I got home to figure out how far i'd gone. 5.2 miles - yay, further than I expected! I checked the clock on the stove when I walked out the door, and when I walked back in. 54 minutes - including indecision time standing on the steps faced with rain, and a short walk after finishing to "cool down". Now folks, that is faster than my race pace when I ran a 5 miler back in March. Easy, breezy, beautiful! I felt really awesome. I'm so glad I did that run - in the dark, in the rain, with no pressure from "gadgets."
There's nothing quite like running in the rain to make you feel badass!
2 comments:
Great job on your runs! It is so much fun to see progress. You are definitely getting faster! I think you are going to see a HUGE PR soon! :)
Congrats on the 11 miler--and yeah, you are obviously going to PR like crazy!!!!
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