Sunday-Funday

If you came here looking for alcohol...check back in about 4 hours. The trouble with relocating my long runs to Sundays is that both Friday nights AND Saturday nights have become forbidden territory for going out until the wee hours of the morning with my faithful friend, Jamesons.

This is probably a good thing. As my father would say (half-jokingly, I'm sure), "Whatever keeps you out of the bars!"

I had a couple of friends who were going out last night, but they didn't end up going out until nearly 9 PM. Since I was planning on getting up at 6 AM, I politely bowed out. I was pretty tired at that point, not to mention cranky due to my noisy neighbor. I can still hear the bass thumping. I did get a ton of work done yesterday, but still have much more to do today.

Oh yeah, the long run! So I had 8 miles on the schedule today, and in a nutshell, it went pretty well. I started running at 7 AM when it was still gray and misty outside. I loved it. It felt mysterious and spooky, like I was the only person in Champaign. I was going to follow the same path that I had run the previous weekend. With some slight modifications.

The problem with me planning my long runs, even back when I had access to the lakefront path, is that I always overshoot the distance, partially due to a desire not to have to double back to complete the mileage, but also due to my lack of math smarts. Today, that happened again. It happened last weekend, too. Instead up running up my street and encountering a potentially slippery hill (seriously, because it warmed up a bit, stuff melted and then refroze, so it is really slippery out), I decided to run a slightly different pattern, which ended up adding on about a quarter mile to the front end of my run. So I thought I would have to figure for another quarter mile somewhere in there.

No, dummy, that would be a half mile total. Luckily, I realized this before I made my entire loop. In any case, I completed the 8 miles. My right IT band and my left foot were acting up off-and-on the entire time, which freaked me out. I'm really paranoid about re-injuring myself. I made sure when I returned home to spend a good amount of time stretching, foam rolling, and using the stick. Sundays are nice because I can take a bit more time to stretch and relax.

My old friends. And some laundry.

Something else I'm having a bit of a struggle with is my long run pace. I've been pretty much staying on my goal pace or something slightly faster during my weekly runs. Per the guidelines, for my long runs, I'm supposed to run them 45 to 60 seconds slower than my goal pace. Now, for those of you who are running 7 minute miles or whatever, maybe running an 8 or 9 minute mile is not a big deal. But for those of us who are, uhhh, slightly slower, this can be a challenge.

I don't want to run 11 minute miles. I've resigned myself to running in between 10:30's and 10:40's. Even still, it's not like running slowly feels so much better, or is significantly easier. It's not! And you're out there that much longer, getting nowhere fast. It's frustrating. But I'm trying to keep my faith in the training plan, and remain confident in my running.