Back on the grid

Ugh! If I had only won the huge Powerball jackpot a few weeks ago, ya know!! Who did win that? Has anyone come forward? This has been a very busy week at work so I haven't had much of a chance to blog, read blogs, exercise or eat well this week. All of this should come in handy for Saturday's half marathon. Hopefully everything should fall into line VERY soon since this stupid budget we've been working on since AUGUST is due tomorrow, and the board presentation is one week away. Thank goodness for corporate deadlines or this retarded thing would drag on forever!!! It's been the most boring, never-ending process and I'm really not interested in doing it EVER again. I hate crap like this that really throws you off schedule, I still have 32 hours of CPE to get this year and only 6 weeks to squeeze it in! Yikes!!

Sunday's 18-miler was AWESOME! Especially compared to the terrible 17-miler a week earlier. The sun was out (and a little hot, even) and my legs felt great. We ran at Shelby Park, which is one of the largest parks around here. This is where we take Pippin to the dog park and we've also done a couple of 5Ks and 15K here. I knew the path was nice and long, and I needed a break from urban running. We started out by running the first mile uphill, from the first parking area up to the dog park, and back down. Mile Two we ran around the lake, and then entered the greenway. About 3 or 4 miles in Brent was hurting already. We had talked about him not running at all that day, but he was only 2 miles from breaking 100 for October so he wanted to do at least that. When his foot started hurting he decided to walk, and he'd meet me when I looped back around. There were a ton of cyclists, roller-bladers and runners out that day, so I had plenty of company. The path itself is a bit dull, but it's nice and flat and hopefully when the rest of the leaves fall you'll be able to see more of the river. There was a Titans home game Sunday afternoon and the whole time I was running I could see a blimp over where I knew the stadium was. Too bad I couldn't watch a broadcast of the game up in the sky! I met back up with Brent around mile 9 or 10. He had done some run/walk intervals and tried to run with me again but his foot was just hurting too bad. I grabbed the car keys and some gummi bears from him and kept going. Since it was pretty warm I was starting to run low on water and needed to refuel. I made it back to the car right around 11.75 miles. My pace had been great so far and I really felt awesome. I swapped out the water bottles and headed back in to give Brent the keys and finish out the remaining 6 miles. I met him about a .5 mile from the car and passed of the keys. About that same time I passed from friendly older guys walking and they asked me how many miles I was doing. When I said "18" the shocked look on their face cracked me up. I told them I was at 12 and they cheered for me and told me to run on. Several of the cyclists passed me multiple times and I could see their surprised looks to "Still" see me running. For the first time I felt like I could run all 26.2 if I needed to. I turned around at mile 15 and headed back to the car. The last two miles were the toughest, I was running with my face in the sun and there was so little shade. Sunday was beautiful with no clouds in the sky at all, but the sun was really starting to make me feel a little iffy. When I made it back to the car Brent was waiting with some nice cold water. My legs felt nuts!! They were so used to running they instantly cramped up, and my stomach reminded me how much it doesn't like extended periods of sunny running. I was VERY happy with my splits, my overall average was 10.11/mile :
Mile 1:12.06/mile warmup, uphill
Mile 2: 10.04/mile
Mile 3:10.54/mile
Mile 4: 10.02/mile
Mile 5:10.18
Mile 6: 9.44
Mile 7: 9.55
Mile 8:10.05
Mile 9: 10.08
Mile 10:10.19
Mile 11:9.56
Mile 12: 10.06 pace (.76 miles) this is when i paused the Garmin to change out my water
Mile 13:10.14/mile
Mile 14: 9.50
Mile 15: 10.11
Mile 16: 9.56
Mile 17: 10.06
Mile 18: 9.27
Lap 19 (.26 miles) 9:34/mile pace

It always cracks me up when I pick up the pace for the last few miles - at this point I just want to be done!! That must mean I have something left in me!!

My only other run this week has been Tues night. I've been SO tired this week that I just wanted a nice, slow 5-miler. I ran the first 3 miles at a 10 min pace and the last 2 at 9:30. My time was right under 49 minutes, and Brent had the nerve to make fun of me! I reminded him my 5 mile race time on Sat had been 42 minutes and asked him what his time had been..... I was way too zonked from my mega-long workday yesterday to walk Pips this morning so I'm about to take him now and do some yoga. I had meant to do 2-3 miles tonight in prep for Saturday's half but I think I just need to store my energy instead and get some rest.

Good luck to everyone racing this weekend in NYC and I know several of you guys are also doing some halfs this weekend. Good luck!!!!

Rachel

October mileage - 131 miles!!

Exercise-
Mon - 1 mile am walk with Pips
Tues - 5 mile run, 1 mile am walk with Pips
Wed - 1 mile am walk with Pips