Blood, Sweat, and Dirt

I have to try to make this post quick because I should be studying for my exam this Tuesday, but I had a pretty extreme run today, and would rather procrastinate and write about that instead. This morning I laced up the sneakers, slathered myself with sun screen and headed down to the trail. I decided to bring a water bottle today because I try not go more than 6 miles without hydrating and I had 8 miles planned for today. I also I don't like stopping back at my house for anything less than 9 miles. I wanted to experiment with steady hydration throughout my run, because that will probably be more what the race will be like with more frequent water stations. I was surprisingly not annoyed by holding the water bottle the whole time.

It was really nice outside, except once I started running I realized just how HOT it was. I was sweating after one mile. I was glad I had the water because it helped me get through the heat! Then after I had been running for a mere 2 miles, I ran passed 2 women on bikes, I waved as I usually do when I pass people and so I wasn't look at the trail in front of me. Suddenly, I went flying forward and skidded across the ground. I had tripped over the tiniest little rock sticking out of the ground :( My legs were all scratched up. I was covered in blood, dirt and sweat. After I stood up, I poured some of the water from my water bottle on my legs to try and clean them off but it didn't really help much and I wanted to save the water to drink. A man came over to ask if I was okay, and I said "yeah I'm fine, only 6 more miles to go!" he looked at me like I was insane and then I started to run again, I wasn't going to let one little fall stop me! There were a ton of people on the trail today and everyone kept looking at my shins as I ran by. I must have looked so hard core :)

 My hand after the run, and Daddy's wedding ring

 My legs after the run

I ran 4 miles out and 4 miles back on the trail, which is further than I've ever run on the trail because when it was snowy I usually only made it out 2 miles before the trail ended. It was fun to see more of the trail and it was really beautiful. My only complaint about today is that there were a ton of people fishing (that part doesn't bother me...to each their own) but they were all smoking!

When I hit the 4 mile turn around, I was in for a rude awakening, it was SO windy going in the other direction. It slowed me down a ton, but I powered through. Then at mile 6.18 (1 of which was the walking warm up), I got such a bad stomach cramp that I had to stop. I waited about a minute, and then started running again. I think stopping was key here rather than running through it. I get stomach cramps fairly often when I'm running, and usually can run through it, but this one was really bad-- I was practically doubled over. Let's hope that doesn't happen on race day! I think drinking the water might have had something to do with it (but maybe not). So for the rest of the run, every time I took a sip of water, I spit it out. I was pretty thirsty from the heat today that I needed to take little sips, but I didn't want to aggravate my stomach, this helped me get through the rest of the run just fine.

I thought about going running for an extra mile, but I was so hot, and I figured I'd had enough with my fall and everything. I also didn't want to overdo it, so I called it quits when I got to 8 miles running. Then I walked 1.08 miles home for a cool down. On my walk my stomach started hurting again...ugh! When I got home I took pictures of my legs haha, and then I finally showered and cleaned myself up. The shower hurt so so so much! The water hitting my cuts was super painful. But I feel better now that I am nice and clean!

Today's splits:
Mile 1: 17:45 (warm up)
Mile 2: 9:26
Mile 3: 9:49 (I fell at 3.03)
Mile 4: 9:42
Mile 5: 9:41
Mile 6: 10:06 (hello wind!)
Mile 7: 10:25
Mile 8: 10:18
Mile 9: 9:55
Mile 10: 18:23 (cool down)
.08: 1:33
Total time: 1:57:09, run time 1:19:28

Yay sub 10 minute pace! I looked back at my blog post from when I ran 8 miles back in February and even though that run was very snowy, I beat my run time by more than 4 minutes! It's pretty cool that I can look back and see how I've improved.

Time to study!

--Melissa