Something Funny Happened on the Way to 9(ish) Miles . . .

I tackled a good old-fashioned long run today and DAMN, did it feel good(ish). I don't officially start marathon training until a week from Monday, but I figured it couldn't hurt to get back into the habit of running long on the weekends. For some reason, I had in my mind that I wanted to tackle 10 miles this morning. Well, "this morning" turned into "this afternoon" as a result of the fact that I TOTALLY put off finalizing my article for the Runners Lounge Book Project until this morning (**DON'T FORGET TO SUBMIT YOUR ARTICLE TODAY IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY!! MORE DETAILS HERE**). But I wasn't going to let that deter me from getting a nice long run in.

I headed out in shorts and a long sleeve tee. As my garmin was apparently pissed at me, she didn't pick up a signal until somewhere between 1.5-2 miles into the run (Um, garmin? We are SO not speaking after that little stunt!). I noticed how good I felt right from the start . . . must have been the unprecedented ten hours of sleep I got last night (yay, sleep)! I was getting all kinds of looks, I guess probably as a result of the shorts . . . but I like to think it was because everyone was so amazed by my gazelle-like stride (ha). After 2.5-miles, I arrived at the park and stopped briefly to stretch out my tight hammies.

I then took off around the main loop in Prospect Park. I was feeling AWESOME . . . like some sort of running machine. But the thing is . . . I was supposed to be running SLOOOOOW. I had told myself that I would take it super easy during the run considering I have a 5K tomorrow that I'm hoping to PR at (fingers crossed!). My legs, though? They thought that was complete nonsense. They wanted to run FAST! No matter how many times I repeated to myself "slow and steady, slow and steady," my legs just kept pushing it. Arg.

I gelled/watered up around mile 5, and continued on. I was starting to feel a bit fatigued, but do you think that slowed me down? Nope. I'm telling you, I was chicking dudes right and left. It was bizarre. I could not for the life of me get myself to run at an appropriate pace. I kept trucking until all of a sudden, around mile 8, I realized I was developing a huge, horrible blister on the ball of my foot. I knew that I should probably cut my run short, but it was seriously all I could do to get myself to stop at 9 miles. I was like some kind of machine. I told myself I was going to walk the last mile home so as to not do any more damage to my foot than I'd already done, but as I was walking, I had to fight the urge to start running again! Legs? What kind of crack are you on? And um, can you please purchase some more of said crack before the 5K race tomorrow? That would be great . . . thanks!

Anyway, I don't have splits for the first mile-and-a-half or so, but here are the splits that garmin actually agreed to record for the run:

Mile 1: 9:41 (this was basically all uphill)

Mile 2: 9:25

Mile 3: 8:59 (um, oops!)

Mile 4: 9:25

Mile 5: 9:18

Mile 6: 9:35 (chugging up the big Prospect Park hill)

Mile 7: 9:17

Mile 7.52: 8:26 pace

So um . . . yeah, that's an overall pace of 9:19 for the last 7.52 miles of the 9(ish)-mile run. Yowsers. The scary thing is that my overall pace was actually probably even faster, since I tend to blow through the first couple miles of that route to Prospect Park. Stupid garmin . . . we are so not friends (but please, please, please can we make up by 9:00 a.m. tomorrow? I have a race and I'd really, really like you to record it! Pretty please with beer on top?)

The blister thing was a result of my stupid sock, which is a little old and stretched out, and apparently rubbed the crap out of my foot with its now large-ish ventilation hole thingies. Boo. But I'm hopeful that it will be okay enough to get through the race tomorrow. I'm definitley shooting for a PR, but I certainly won't be devastated if I don't quite snag one. After all, I get to have a super fun RBF meet-up afterwards . . . and there will be beer. So yeah, we all know that's basically all I need to make me happy!!

Oh, and before I sign off for the night, I just have to squeal a little because . . . EEEK!! I GOT TWO NEW PAIRS OF RUNNING SHOES IN THE MAIL TODAY!!!! :) I went on some kind of a crazy running gear shopping spree last weekend and got a bunch of new shorts/tops, as well as these two pretty pairs (and yes, I do judge my running shoes on their looks!) . . . hooray for new running shoes!! :)

Asics Gel Nimbus 10 (my long distance shoes)

Zoot Ultra TT (My shorter-distance/speed training shoes)