This week has been a roller coaster. Last week I didn't do a long run because I was out of town and everything there seemed to make it hard. My sleep was off, my food, the weather, things just weren't going too great. There weren't great/safe places for me to run long distances and I refuse to run laps; it's just not for me. I turn miserable in a hurry. Perhaps that's an area I need to work on improving.
Sunday I drove 8+ hours back to Florida to start my week. Monday morning I was suppose to run but thankfully (I shouldn't say that) I woke up to a small thunderstorm and opted out. Later in the morning I headed to Orlando and bought myself a new pair of shoes. Yeah! My feet were very thankful.
Tuesday I went out and decided that I had enough energy, somehow, to run a tempo run which I haven't done in a really long time. I ran 5 miles in 48:45, not too bad. I was happy since like every other day here it was 80+ and humid at just past 6am.
Wednesday I set out to run 8 miles. At mile 2.5 I thought about turning around and cutting it to 5, but my head told me I was being lazy and I needed to push on. I continued, counting the tenths of a mile as they past because I was feelong so badly. At the 4 mile mark, I turned around, walked for a minute, drank my water and decided I should run again. By mile 5 I had had it. I just couldn't go on. I was hot, hungry, bored, tired... everything I didn't need. I decided it was ok to walk home from here, 3 miles :( I walked and walked, occassionally running a few feet and then walking. Near the 7 mile mark there's a cold water fountain. I stopped for a drink and decided I would run the last mile, mainly because I would be passing one of my cheerleaders and I didn't want them to see me walking. So, I ran the last mile and was so thankful to be done. I had completed what I think is possibly the worst run of all my training.
Thursday was an off day! Yeah. Because of events in town I wanted to run my long run on Friday and possibly a 10k on Sunday. Thursday I ate tons :) I wasn't over stuffed, just happy.
All week my sleep has been off after recovering from my trip last week and so I knew getting up early on Friday would be a challenge, but that was still the plan. So here goes: 4 am, alarm sounds, 4:09 am, alarm sounds again, but I'm already up. I bodyglide from head to toe, seemingly, put on my clothes, stretch, and put the final touches on it all. By 4:45 Irfan and I are heading out the door. We are set to go.
50 ft into the run, yes only 50 ft! My belt falls off and my garmin goes flying. It's happened before. I reach down to pick it up and see the pin popped out that holds the strap. Great! Now what?! Irfan fixes that. In the mean time I realize that one of my gu packets also fell off. I work trying to get that fixed and finally settle on a different arrangement. Fine. I'm now flustered, tired, my stomach ached today, but I was still willing to give this another shot.
I run about 0.1 miles and my belt is so heavy it's bouncing like crazy. I feel like it's going to fall any minute and so I stop. I can't have this belt bouncing for 20 miles. I'll have no skin left or sanity. I stop, sit on a bench and yell to Irfan I'm not running. He's a great guy and comes back to find out what the problem is. He tells me to tighen my belt and try again. I already know how this works, but to humor him, I comply.
We start running again, now we're really ready. I hit the road, because at 5am there are very few cars. Something in the back of my mind just kept telling me this wasn't a good idea. Everything seemed to be going wrong and I felt like today could be my last. I just some how couldn't get the picture of someone running over me, most likely a drunk driver, out of my head, but I kept running anyway, focusing on getting started.
At 0.8 miles my belt flew off for the last time today. I had had it! I couldn't take it. I wanted to cry. I had gotten up so early and was suppose to be having this great run, but nothing was working. This was a sign. I turned around and walked home. Irfan decided to join me. Today I will have to trouble shoot what to do about my belt coming apart repeatedly. I have a couple of ideas. I hope one works.
Irfan wanted to jog back, I did not. Instead I suggested we ditch our belts after walking home and run a magic mile (1 mile sprint to gain an estimated finish time for the marathon). We are always commenting on how much we would like to run one, but it's too hot; we really need to do it while it's still dark. Today would be perfect. We settled on that plan.
We set off running north. Irfan takes off, but I stay a few feet behind. As the seconds pass, he moves farther ahead but never really leaving me. I wanted to stop at around 0.25 miles then at 0.33 and so on. I kept telling myself to focus. There's a lot of information that comes out of this one mile sprint. I need to do it. I want to do it. Run! Run! Run! The chase is still on.
It's nice because around 0.33 miles, we round a slight bend and then can see the finish line, a well lit glass enclosed bridge over the road. I tell myself it's just a little farther. I need to stay focused. Focus! Focus! Run! Run! I start guessing what I think my time will be, but resist the urge to look at my watch. At last I see Irfan stopped, leaning on a fire hydrant. One would have thought he had been there for minutes instead of less than the 40 sec ahead of me that he finished.
I finished in a mere 7 min 21 sec, my best mile time since the 6th grade! That far exceeded my goal of 7:30 (a lofty dream I thought) or a more realistic 7:45-55 mile pace. It was magic! That invisible string that pulled me though my half marathon, pulled me though this mile and hopefully I'll find a lead for the marathon too. According to the calculators, I should be able to run the marathon in 4:08-4:10. There's so much that it depends on though, but it's nice to think of what the possibilities are.
So what started as a bad running day, ended up with a really great finish and tomorrow we'll try again for 20 miles!
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