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Sunday, May 4, 2008

The Long Run is Back . . . Kinda

Today was long run day. As I mentioned yesterday, I'd done mostly cross training over the past week, and I was very interested in seeing how today's long run would pan out. Well, I have to say, it was probably the best long run I've had throughout my 8 weeks of half-marathon training. And while it wouldn't take much to beat out the crap-fest of long runs I've suffered through to date, today was really just perfect--or almost perfect anyway. The weather was gorgeous, I only got run over by an obnoxious teen on a bike once, and I felt pretty strong for most of the run. Now, you may be wondering what limits this run to being "almost perfect." Well . . . sadly, I did not run the full 8 miles. Around the 7-mile mark, I REALLY started to drag. Like many of my other runs lately, I just got to a point where I felt like I was exerting an absurd amount of effort, but the result was me crawling along at a snail's pace, hardly able to continue moving. I made it another quarter of a mile before deciding it best to walk the remaining distance. I was just having to work WAY too hard to justify continuing . . . and figured as such, my body was probably trying to tell me it was done with running for the day. Still, I feel really good about the run, and I'm thinking that another week of sleep and cross training are in order.

A million thanks (or foot rubs, maybe--what good are multiple "thanks"?) to Wilson, who ran with me despite the fact that I insisted on running "slower than slow" . . . Ha, my Garmin died the second I turned it on (oops, maybe charging it occasionally would help), so I unintentionally ran "watchless." (Emilie, I think running gods totally agreed with you on that no watch thing). According to Wilson's watch, we ran right around a 10:00/mile pace (which is actually faster than I thought--it felt like we were crawling).

Oh, and a quick shoutout to the Mister Softee man . . . what would I do without you? If it weren't so creepy, I'd promise a million foot rubs to you too--but how about I just buy a million slushes/soft-serve cones from you instead? That will benefit us both ;)

4 comments:

Chris said...

Regardless of not doing the 8, it sounds like you had a pretty good run. And the take it easy/week full of cross training did not hurt you too much. My buddy, Coach Kip, told me that you can pretty much get away with not doing a lot of running during the week (assuming you are doing cross training) as long as you get your long run in every week. Worked for you!

Jen in Budapest said...

Hey there! I found you on meg's blog and thought I'd comment. Sometimes we have those days.....8 miles turns to 7 but the reality is that you got out there and did it. And sometimes we push through, sometimes not. It's all good.

How cool that you ran the LA marathon. I lived in LA for four years and never got around to doing that. Now I live in Budapest and it's the furthest thing from my mind -- the LA marathon. But I am going to try the 1/2 in Budapest this Fall and I'm training for a sprint tri....Well, much luck to you as you continue training! Jen

EmLit said...

I'm glad you got out there and had a good run and listened to your body! I find it hilarious that the running gods and I were in sync for once, since I felt like we've been fighting for the past month or so. I'm so relieved to know that's over!!

Keep up the good work :)

The Laminator said...

Good job, Irish. I think you're back on track now. Here's to a great week of cross-training and even better weekend long run.

Oh yeah, I dig Mister Softee too. Not really because I'm a customer, but because his sounds usually translate to warm weather!