This morning, my schedule called for 8 miles of hills. I had plans to go to the Giants game tonight, so I had to knock it out this morning.
I was mostly adjusted to morning running, but my runs keep going and getting longer on me. Seven miles one day last week, runs of 8, 9 and 10 in upcoming weeks. Silly marathon. While those are technically “mid-distance” runs, they’re still pretty damn long for mid-week runs that need to be squeezed in with a full day of work and usually some sort of commitment after work.
I’m nervous about those long mid-week runs coming up in the next few weeks and how I’m going to get them in.
But I’m lucky. And I’m choosing to do this. Because I enjoy it, and because I know it will pay off on October 28.
Mike had surgery this morning. It’s worth it to him, he said, if he can run again after the surgery. He’ll be on crutches for a few weeks and then have some physical therapy after that.
So I ran for him this morning.
On sore, heavy, tired legs, telling myself to STFU and just run up to the park and get my hill training in.
Remember the last time I ran a mile time trial, and I was so excited?
Well, I ran a mile time trial again tonight, and it was far less exciting.
I had a session with my trainer this morning, and other times I’ve run after working out with her, my legs have felt like utter jello, so I decided to postpone today’s run for tonight since I had no plans tonight.
I didn’t leave work until almost 8, which is not terribly late by normal-life standards, but might as well be the middle of the night for running. Especially when it’s already dark and you have 8 miles planned for tomorrow morning. I had 5 miles on my schedule (4.5 after you subtract some intervals I did this morning in between strength moves) for tonight but knew I’d have a hard time sleeping if I did it tonight.
Here’s what I have on deck for this week, and I looked at it and tried figure out how I could move things around.
One mile? No matter how tired my legs are, I can crank out a mile. Less than 10 minutes and I’ll be done.
So, out to Madison Square Park I went to knock out that mile. My legs were still feeling pretty sore, and I was tired. I figured I probably wouldn’t break my past record tonight, but I didn’t think this would happen…
It’s not just that it’s more than two minutes slower. It’s that it’s wrong. The last time I did the time trial, I think I ran about two laps around the park, but I didn’t remember exactly where I started and stopped, so I just went by my watch tonight.
Bad idea.
(Map from Garmin)
No, Garmin, no. I don’t even know how I could possibly run in this formation.
I ran two laps around the park, looked down at my Garmin, and it was just around .7 miles. I ran another 3/4 of the way around the park (for a total of 2.75ish laps of the park) before my Garmin beeped one mile.
(Map from MapMyRun)
Here’s my actual run. Around the perimeter. Like a semi-normal person. (You know, a normal person who runs two laps around a park as fast as they can at 8pm.)
1.31 miles, which is a 6:16 pace. Which is still faster than I ever thought I could run, but not faster than last time. How quickly we change expectations, right?
I’m not going to wait until next month to try this time trial again. I foresee another one next week, once my Garmin and I have had some time to chat and work out our differences.
But hey, at least I’m down one workout from my schedule this week. Four to go.
What’s your primary way of tracking time/mileage/pace? Do you have a backup?
