Vic wrote about how she conquered her fears last week, and today I conquered one of mine! For some reason, I was SO nervous about today's run. TNT's schedule said 7 miles, and even though I've run that on the treadmill many times, I was shakin' in my Nike's thinking about doing it outside. I think I was nervous because I had done my past few long runs inside and this run would be much further than any run I'd ever done outside before. I could have chickened out and done this run inside because it's still pretty snowy on the ground around here, but I know that if I want to tackle the half marathon in a few short months, then I need to do more runs outside.
Dad was always up for challenges. We were so proud of him with his awesome new office building. Now I'm pretty sure Dad wasn't "afraid" of this, but it was still something he went into head on and accomplished. I plan on taking this attitude for completing the half marathon, and for many other aspects of my life.
Dad in front of his office as it was being built, January, 2008
Anyway, the weather was gorgeous today, and before I left I even decided to ditch a layer of clothing. I walked down to the trail by the river, but when I got to the path that leads to the trail it was completely covered in snow! I decided to trek down a little further to where the actual trail is and saw that there were some snowy patches, but it looked okay. Well, I was wrong! On the spots where it was snowy it was really difficult to run because it was kind of slippery (not dangerous slippery, but annoying slippery). On the spots where it wasn't snowy it was SO muddy. I was ankle deep in mud and it was really tough to run on it! My beautiful white sneakers are now a lovely shade of dirt! :(
I decided to suck it up though and kept running. However, at about mile 1.25, the trail stopped and it was all snow. It was at this point that I also saw 2 of the biggest geese I have ever seen in my life. Seriously, they were huge. Anyway, I turned around and continued on the slippery/muddy path. When I got to my starting point I thought about hitting the streets, but decided to keep going on the trail (it goes for about a half mile in the other direction too) and then I did the whole trail again plus a little more to get to a total of 7 miles. I have no clue why I decided to stay on the path instead of going on the streets! Oh well.
Before my run I thought about possibly walking for some of it, but once I was going I was in the zone and I didn't stop once. When my Garmin finally said 8 miles (1 mile warm up plus the 7 running) my legs slowed to a walk and they felt like they weren't even attached to my body! It was so crazy, but it made me glad that I didn't stop to walk because I'm not sure I would have been able to start running again (after walking for about a half mile my legs felt normal again though).
Because of the conditions of the path, my pace was significantly slower than normal. In a way, this is a good thing, I've been trying to get better at pacing myself instead of going all out and not being able to finish the half. I would love to say that I could finish the half at my fastest pace, but I'm just not sure that's realistic, so my main focus is just finishing it! Here are today's splits:
Mile 1: 15:15 (warm up)
Mile 2: 10:12
Mile 3: 10:28
Mile 4: 9:59
Mile 5: 10:04
Mile 6: 10:19
Mile 7: 10:16
Mile 8: 10:02
Mile 9: 16:48 (cool down)
.11: 1:49 (cool down)
The 7 miles of running took 1 hour 11 minutes and 23 seconds with a total of 9.11 miles in 1 hour 45 minutes and 15 seconds.
I hope the next time I head down to the path it's less muddy, otherwise I'll have to find somewhere new to run! I'm off to stretch!
--Melissa
No comments:
Post a Comment