Yesterday my training plan called for me to run 11-13 miles depending on how I was feeling. I got ready and was about to head out when it started raining and then snowing. Not ideal for running lots of miles! I checked the weather on my phone and it looked like everything was supposed to pass in half an hour or so, so I waited until things cleared up and then drove to the library to park and start running.
I started off doing a 3 mile loop that took me back to my car in case I needed to drop anything off and I was sure glad I planned my run that way. When I started running it was 37 degrees and pretty windy. After 3 miles, the sun was shining, the wind had dropped and the temperature was heating up, so I dropped off my gloves and jacket in the car and started off again for the rest of my run. There were lots of people out running and I'm guessing many of them were doing their longest training runs since we are 3 weeks out from the race. I was feeling great up until about mile 8 and was actually running longer stretches than I normally do. I'm a run a mile and then walk and take a few sips of water and start running for another mile kind of person, but I found my stride and stretched out my running spurts to about 1.5-2 miles. After mile 8 I was starting to get a little bit of knee pain in my left knee (which I was expecting since it hurt the day before on the treadmill) and a little ache in my hips. The last mile I stopped to walk about 3 times and was feeling a little bowlegged. I'm surprisingly less sore today than I thought I was going to be.
I ended up running a half marathon distance in 2:37:02 which is awesome as far as a training run goes since I was hoping to have a time of 2:30 during the actual race. After making such good time yesterday, I don't think it will be that big of a stretch to shave off 7 minutes in the race since I wasn't running that hard and usually run faster with less walking during races. I never thought I would be able to go from being a non-runner to a half-marathoner in less than 2 years. I may not be the fastest and I still take lots of walk breaks, but running has really become a staple in my life and I'm not sure why I didn't start sooner.
I used my new Garmin Forerunner 10 that Chris got me for my birthday during my run yesterday and I am so much more happy using it than using my iPhone with Runkeeper. It's nice to be able to just glance at my wrist to check my time/pace/distance than to drag my phone out of a pocket or my fuel belt, check it, and put it back. Plus the beep at each mile is really nice too! I'm a data kind of person, so I kind of hate running with no indication of how far or long I am running and this watch seems to be the perfect addition to my running outfit.
Today is a day to rest, drink lots of coffee, knit, and watch the Boston Marathon.
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