Monday, March 12, 2012

Day 107 (3/10): 13 miles / 1:48:09

I honestly don't even know what to say about today's run. 

It was hard.  I'm tired.  That just about sums it up.

Okay, that's lame... I clearly have more to say about the longest run of my life...

But, seriously... it was hard and I am really tired.  It might have something to do with my crazy fast pace...  I'm still trying to figure out how it's possible that I ran 13 miles and averaged 8:19 per mile!!!  This makes me question a lot about how I've been running thus far.  One might assume that this pace actually suggests that my mileage is inaccurate... except that I know it's not.

Today's weather was just about as perfect as it could be - 40 and sunny with very little wind.  As soon as I started I knew I was probably going too fast, but I felt good and decided to see where my first mile ended up before making too many adjustments.  I was apparently too excited about running my first half marathon :)

Here's the abbreviated play-by-play as it happened in my head:  Great day for a run, so glad to be outside enjoying the sunshine.  Mile 1: 8:30 - way too fast!  Time to slow down.  Feeling good, decide not to look at my watch every ten strides, focus on the music instead.  Mile 2: 8:00 - WTF?!?  I'm seriously going to be in trouble if I don't slow down.  Leave the neighborhood, head towards busy intersection, think to myself that I look pretty awesome in my running gear, everyone is looking at me wishing they could be this cool.  I settle into my pace feeling like it's one I can hold on to for the next 10 miles.  Mile 3: 8:10 - OMG I might die!  Take my route through Avon Commons, busy day for shoppers, tell myself to slow down a bit.  Mile 4: 8:10 - Clearly I've lost my freakin' mind!  At this point I know I need to do something different.  I come to the conclusion that I know the mile markers along my route too well and, no matter how hard I try, I won't be able to slow myself down because, somewhere in the back of my mind, I'll be disappointed with the first mile that exceeds 9 minutes.  I opt to run the rest of my route in a different order so that I completely lose track of all mileage.  This means lots of loops and out-and-backs, but anything beats having to walk my last few miles because I've set the bar so ridiculously high.  The remaining play-by-play is a jumbled mess of: "I can't do this", wave to the neighbors, "slow down moron", stop and stretch at the light, "hey, I know that girl", good song, "I can do this", "wasn't I just here?", my feet hurt, and, finally, "HOLY SHIT that was fast!"

Needless to say, my efforts to lose track of the miles didn't work out so well for me.  Not that I'm complaining.  The fact that I ran this pace means that I'm capable of it.  This means I should probably be running a little faster than I have been for some of my other runs... particularly the shorter ones.  The lazy part of me is a little annoyed because I now have higher expectations for myself.  I'm always excited about improvement, but I tend to compete with myself far too much and I'm afraid this will turn into the pace I try to run all the time... not something that would be good for me.

Surely, this afternoon, tomorrow and most likely the entire next week, I will be paying for this workout... I can already feel every muscle in my legs telling me what a dumbass I am.  And yet, somehow, I still feel freakin' awesome!!!

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