Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Chicago Training Days 22 and 23

It's time for an update! Yay!

Yesterday, the rain was horrible and I knew I wasn't going to get my 7 miles in that I had planned. So I pulled a short run from later in the week and decided to switch it up a little. (is that even allowed when you're supposed to be following a plan??!)

So anyways, I did three miles yesterday that were intended for later in the week. I got rained on the whole time and took advantage of it by wearing long sleeves. (Okay, so the sleeves probably weren't neccessary, but how can you go wrong with a Goofy Challenge shirt. haha. I did get a little bit warm.) I ended up with about a 14 minute pace, which wasn't my best, but at the same time, isn't awful. I felt pretty good the entire time. It has been nice to have some rainy weather, so that I can keep going and it isn't quite as hot.

Today was the 7 miler. I don't know why I was dreading it, but I was. I put it off almost all day. I was going to go in the morning. Before I knew it, it was 11 and I figured it was too hot. Then I was going to go at 2:30-3ish so that I'd be back by the time Katherine got home from work and we could have some fun adventures. Then, before I knew it, it was 4:15 and almost time for her to head home from work. In that case, I figured that I would stick close to home and then see if she wanted to come with me later. My pace was horrendous for the first two miles that I did alone. There's something extremely lame about running around an apartment complex for multiple laps. Maybe I need a larger apartment complex. haha.

When Katherine got home, she changed out of her work clothes and we headed out to the running trail.

I realize that when I say running trail, it sort of sounds like I do a lot of trail running. The trail that I use isn't really a trail. It's an asphalt path. Just to clear that up. haha.

I felt fantastic until I was a little past mile 3 and a half. My left hip/upper leg started cramping up like crazy. I stopped to stretch several times. Each time, it felt a lot better, but then got worse again. I didn't really have a choice but to finish out the run, because of the out-and-back nature of the route that I use. I did a LOT of walking on the way back home. So much that I got really frustrated with myself. Ugh. I'm worried that I'm seriously hurt.

My pace ended up in the 16-minute range. Awful. Almost embarassingly so.

Tomorrow, I might actually have to skip a run for the first time on this training cycle. I'm praying that I'll wake up feeling fabulous and completely able to finish out what I need to do. The likelihood of that is slim, but there's always hope, right? The idea of being behind on my training really freaks me out and I'm not sure why, considering that I've never followed a real training plan before. Hmm...

Here are a few pictures from today's run. They're from my Blackberry, so they aren't as lovely as the ones that I took with my new camera the other day.

 My first stretching moment.

 Katherine saw a bunny in the cloud and decided to be like the bunny. Do you see it?

This picture is AWFUL quality, but there was for sure an alligator swimming along in the river next to the path. I've never seen an alligator outside of the zoo before, so this was crazy. (Wait! There's a 3 legged alligator who lives in the Magic Kingdom.) Can you see him?


Goal: 1000 miles/366 days
So far: 375.94 miles/200 days
To go: 624.06 miles/166 days

1 comment:

  1. That alligator photo is lame. It was really amazing to see and I felt like slowly following it to see if it'd get closer for a better photo but we were running and it was slowly swimming along. It was a rough run but you got through it.

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