Sunday, June 17, 2012

No 10k for us but great training instead!

Yesterday should have been our 10k race but we decided to skip it. It was only going to be 80 degrees out and I could have gotten through it, but I still don't feel comfortable pushing the pace too much in the warm weather and what is the point in signing up for a RACE if you are just going to go at a slow comfortable pace? If that seems like wussing out to you, you should know that my body emits an amazing amount of heat and running in shorts and a tanktop in 50ish degree weather is just heaven to me - yea, I can't handle the heat and get dizzy/pass out easily - not cool.

Last week we did our first 8 mile run and it was rough but we got through it. On Thursday I met up with a friend to do a new running route with a 1.75 mile loop and hills. Apparently she and I had done the easy direction (and let's be honest... we walked and talked for 1/2 of each lap lol) because I def. do not remember going UP huge steep hills on Thursday like we did when Luke and I went back yesterday! Apparently one direction is way easier than the other, so we made sure to switch directions each lap to get the optimum workout in without over doing it. 8 miles of up/down hills later and I was beat. I think we are going to try it again next week - our race up in PA is super hilly so this will be good practice for me... or convince me to find a new race haha.

I can't believe that I was just hoping to be able to do 6.4 miles after 6 weeks of training and I was able to get up to 8 hilly miles in that same amount of time. So happy that my recovery is going so well! I did happen to get a sharp shooting pain on the bottom my left foot while running yesterday and woah buddy did that ever hurt! We walked .25 of a mile while flexing my foot repeatedly and it finally got better so we could finish the last few laps - thank goodness! I also have some weird issue with the lower part of my calf - it really isn't even my calf tho because it is on the side of my leg there - no clue what it is but it has persisted for 4 weeks now. I stretch and roll and ice it and it feels better but never goes away and gets sore each time I run. O well - discomfort I can handle, pain I will avoid - let's hope it doesn't get to the pain stage at any point in time so we can keep training!!

We are way ahead of our training schedule for a 1/2 marathon in September so we made a modified schedule where we are doing each of our long runs twice. We will end up doing 9, 10, 11, 12 mile runs 2 x's each and probably can even get a 13 miler in before we start tapering down before the race if we want to. I think having more long runs like this and having 11 more weeks to build up to 13.1 miles will keep me injury free (I hope!!) and also give me more confidence that I CAN do a half marathon and not keel over at the finish line.

My pace has been slow for these longer runs - a lot slower than I'd like but really I just need to focus on getting to the finish line without getting hurt and hope that in the next 11 weeks my body adjusts to running 90+ minutes in the heat and our pace will go back down naturally. Someone please tell me this is true and I'm not just wishful thinking? haha :)

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