Beautiful Saturday

Today was a beautiful day with temps starting out pretty cool and then getting up to almost 60 degrees. I had one of those Fridays where I really could have cared less if I ran Saturday or not. I knew that wouldn't last long, but everyone was running different distances than what I needed so I opted to not get up at 5am and sleep till 7:30.

There were groups running everywhere. Annette was running with some of the girls in Maumelle and the Little Rock Marathon Training Group. Some of the Cruisers were running 20 miles on the marathon route and some were running 13.1 on the half marathon route. My schedule only called for 8. I had an emergency vehicle driving class at 11 so it didn't make much sense for me to drive downtown for 8 miles.

The bad thing about being injured is being behind on training. Everyone else is running 13-20 mile training runs and I am just now hitting 8. I could do the longer runs but that would not be good and is against training rules. Doing too much too soon just leads to injury so I have been trying to be patient but its hard.

So after driving fire trucks around a serpentine course for a few hours, I decided to get my run in. The weather was perfect and there was no need for tights or long sleeves. I just headed out of my neighborhood and figured I'd do an out and back somewhere, or wherever the road took me.

Sometimes this is the best kind of run. Not knowing really where your going exactly, but with my trusty garmin I knew what my miles were as I went. I ran the first two miles without stopping, but then I needed a drink. I was sweating pretty good by now and haven't ran in this kind of weather in a while.

I did have my Ipod going and if it wasn't for that I probably would not have made it through this run. It was hard and painful, but at times it was exilerating too. Going one way I had a cool head wind and then going the other the wind was behind me so it was hot. There was a lot of traffic out and it seemed that half of the cars were trying to see how close they could come to hitting me without actually doing it. I do not understand why some people will not move over when there is no other traffic coming. If it wasn't for the cars and crazy drivers, this would have been much like running down the river trail. It was just a beautiful day to be out.

By mile 4 I was getting tired. Maybe it was just the lack of motivation. I decided to try Jackies run 4 minute walk 1 minute thing a little. It made me feel better and passed the time. I think I did this for about 2 miles maybe then when I hit mile 5 I just kept going. I wanted to see what my 10k time would be but by the time I got there I was turning into the ball park and I didn't pay much attention to it. Next thing I knew I had hit 7. I was running some close routes around some of the neighborhoods so I knew I was almost done. By the time I hit my block, I ran around it and I was at 8.1.

It really was a hot run and thats probably why I felt like I was dragging. Its always harder running alone also since you have to push yourself and fight with your own head. I'll miss out on anything for Sunday as I am out of town a few days for business.

Here are my splits:
total miles - 8.1
time-1:30:40
avg pace - 11:12
1-10:26
2-10:44
3-11:03
4-11:03 (thats right, same as mile 3 I looked twice)
5-11:19
6-11:08
7-12:30
8-11:06
1100 calories