Pocket Aces: Epic Eleven

As I write this post, I am on a serious runner's high. This morning I went for an 11 mile run, and it was FANTASTIC! As terrible as the weather was last week, that's how unbelievably perfect the weather was today. I wore pants and my Team in Training practice tech tee. This outfit left me without pockets, so I had to get creative with where to put my key. I used to just loop it through my shoe laces, but when I did that I found myself constantly looking down to make sure it was still attached, which was very annoying. Instead, I thought up a little key contraption:

I threaded my headphones through the top of the key and then kept it flat by wrapping a hair tie around the key and my shuffle. Brilliant, or so I thought. The key ended up flying out of the hair tie and bobbing around on my headphones after running for about 5 seconds. I ended up just wrapping the hair tie through the key and wearing it around my wrist. Not perfect, but it worked, maybe I'll buy myself a super cool Spi Belt (essentially a fanny pack for runners).

Before I left I set up a little fuel station in my living room:

A clemintine and water

My plan was to run a mile to the trail, run out 2.5 miles, run back 2.5 miles, and then run the 1 mile back from the trail. This would get me to 7 miles, and then I would stop for some water and a couple sections of clemintine. Then I planned to do a 2 mile loop around campus, stop for more water, and then finally do 2 more miles. I stuck to the original 7 mile plan, but I ended up doing the whole 4 miles at once. My legs felt really tired after my quick pit stop at home. After ~1.5 miles though my legs felt better and so I didn't want to stop for another break. After the 11 miles, I did a one mile cool down walk. Here are the splits with some notes:

Mile 1: 10:18 (waited at a light for a while, walked slowly down the steps leading from the bridge down to the trail)

Mile 2: 9:48 (on the trail, feeling great!)

Mile 3: 9:58 (on the trail)

Mile 4: 10:10 (around the 3/4 mile mark I was starting to feel a little tired, wishing water wasn't ~2 miles away)

Mile 5: 9:59 (feeling better, still on the trail)

Mile 6: 9:39 (back to the part of the trail I feel most familiar with, feeling great!)

Mile 7: 10:26 (walked very slowly up the stairs leading from the trail to the bridge, got stuck at a light)

Water break with 2 sections of clemintine for some fuel. I probably should have had more but my stomach didn't like it.

Mile 8: 9:50 (on campus, feeling a little icky)

Mile 9: 10:25 (on campus, legs feeling really weak, 2 hills)

Mile 10: 9:55 (feeling much, much better, ready to rock out these last 2 miles)

Mile 11: 9:21 (!!!!! I sprinted at the end pretending it was the end of the race)

Total run time: 1 hour, 49 minutes, 54 seconds!!!!

Mile 12(.01): 17:18 (cool down)

Total time: 2:06:54

I definitely could have ran 2 more miles and completed a half! It was awesome! Maybe it was because of the weather, or that I ran over half on the trail (which I generally find slightly easier than on the road), or that I got a really good night's sleep, but whatever the reason I feel like I completely rocked those 11 miles!!!!

As I was running, on this gorgeous day, I thought about Dad. Not only was it perfect running weather, but it was also perfect golf weather. And we all know Dad loved a good golf day :)