Mood: on fire
Topic: Marathon
I finished ten miles today feeling great! I was up by 5:10 and out by 6:00, but I'm going to try to get out by 5:00 next week because as the heat goes up, so does my heart rate. I started out very slowly on both the walk and run portions, but by minute 35 I was feeling great. I ran 40% today (2 minute run with a 3 minute walking recovery) and my body didn't have any problems at all until mile 9. I had no coughing or wheezing, my heart rate stayed fairly low even on uphill runs, and my left arch, the one that usually gives out first, didn't have a single pain. At mile 8 I started getting chills, but no goosebumps and my heart rate was still recovering quickly, so I took it easy on the last two miles, and didn't have any trouble finishing. By mile 9, though, I started getting pains in the outside of my right arch and it wasn't the kind of pain that said "you can run through this and it will go away." I continued my run intervals through 9.5 miles, then walked the last half mile completely. It was a really great workout for me.
I still have to work on keeping my shoulders loose. I catch myself doing two things: lifting my shoulders in an attempt to make my body hit the ground more lightly (funny, I know) and bowing my head in an attempt to make myself invisible (even funnier). When I was trying to learn good form in Seattle, I worked really hard on my posture, but now that I'm out doing these long, slow runs, psychologically it's easier for me to watch the pavement right in front of my feet and just think about putting one foot in front of the other than it is to keep my head up and my eyes on the horizon that only inches closer. A man passed me today wearing a Race for the Cure T-shirt and he had that head up, confident look that I would like to develop over the next five months.
At the end of mile 7, I was in a downhill run interval and I suddenly remembered one of the female spectators at my last Danskin Triathlon. She ran with me to the top of the last hill before the finish and kept saying that I had great rhythm and that I was almost there and that I was doing great. Just thinking about that made me start crying this morning, which was not good on a whole lot of levels. My heart rate didn't recover during the walk session and hit 179 beats per minute on the next uphill run segment. Had to get rid of that memory in a hurry!!
I will move up to 60% running on the two short runs this week, which will mean 3 minutes running with a two minute walking recovery. After last weekend, I feel like I'm back on track and happy with my progress.
Thoughts captured by Kristine
at 10:28 AM EDT
Updated: Monday, June 6, 2005 9:30 AM EDT