A story of going from being a non-runner to planning for a marathon in three years...

Thursday, July 9, 2009

T- minus

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Well, I'm down to 9 and a half days until my next half-marathon. Conventional running wisdom tells me that 10 days is the cut off for any more training to change your performance on race day. Meaning that from here on out my goals are to keep up my endurance and not get injured. So even if I managed to find some hills, at this point it wouldn't make a difference.

So, instead of worrying about my lack of hill training, I did my six mile tempo run last night. I'd felt grumpy and irritable all day and seriously considered skipping my run. But, as my husband pointed out, the weather was relatively cool, it was cloudy, and it was lightly raining. All things that could make for a nice run.

Does anyone else feel silly wearing a visor or hat when it's cloudy and raining? I almost wore a bandanna instead but realized that the visor would keep the rain off my face. And it did. I honestly couldn't even tell it was raining while I was running.

I started off SLOOOOOOOW. I tend to start my tempo runs too fast, but in this case I did my warm-up mile in about 10:30. My Garmin is STILL acting up. It can't figure out my pace to save it's life. It's always under-estimating how fast I'm going. Which is why, although I was aiming to hit 9:45 minutes per mile after the warm-up, I ended up going much faster than that for three out of the four tempo miles.

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And even on the cool-down mile! I swear to you, every time I looked at my Garmin it told me my pace was around 10:00 minutes per mile for that cool-down one. Yet, somehow I did even it faster than tempo.

I'm beginning to think my tempo pace needs to be adjusted. Next training cycle, for sure! This run felt challenging, but I still felt like I could have kept going if I had to at the end. I did have to pause for traffic a few times, though. I wish I could find a nice, long stretch that wasn't interrupted by intersections.

My blister didn't give me any issues. I carried my hand-held water bottle but didn't really drink out of it all that much. I didn't even wear my iPod. And when I got home, my husband was making tacos for dinner. Tacos rule.


Activity
Route:--Elev. Avg:627 ft
Location:Forest Park, ILElev. Gain:+0 ft
Date:07/08/09Up/Downhill: [+127/-127]
Time:06:22 PMDifficulty:2.1 / 5.0
 
Weather:Light Rain
 64 F temp; 69% humidity
 64 F heat index; winds E 3
Performance

Distance: 6.07 miles
Time:0:58:21
Speed:6.2 mph
Pace:9' 37 /mi
Calories:628
Map
 
Elevation (ft)
 
Pace (min/mile)
 
Splits
MilePace (min/mile)Speed (mph)Elevation
Gain
actual+/- avgactual+/- avg
110' 47+1' 105.6-0.7+4 ft
29' 19-0' 186.4+0.2+10 ft
39' 43+0' 066.2-0.1-6 ft
49' 35-0' 026.3+0.0+7 ft
59' 13-0' 246.5+0.3-10 ft
69' 33-0' 046.3+0.0-3 ft
end11' 40+2' 035.1-1.10 ft
Versus average of 9' 37 min/mile

Posted from bimactive.com

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

9 days! Eeep! One my my Facebook friends that is a personal trainer/coach kinda "yelled" at me for my track meet last night and said I need to get to tapering, STAT. What I've got left:
- easy 3, probably on Friday
- last long run, mine will end up around8, actually, which is what I have on the schedule. My group is doing 2 7 mile loops and an extra mile for 15. I'm skipping a loop.
- 5 mile tempo (that's still ok in the last week, right? It's not "speed".
- skipping the other easy run next week, it's too much
- easy run with you on Friday

We're almost there!

Oz Runner said...

good pace, you seem to be prepared for the half....i always wear a visor when i run...it keeps the rain off my face and cuts down on glare..

kristen said...

9 days! that was so fast. I love hats and visors! I never feel silly in them. And your right Tacos Rule!!

kilax said...

I am starting to worry about your Garmin! Did you try the software upgrades? It would be so hard to pace yourself off of it when it is goofing up like that.

I love it when I come home and Steven is making dinner! We love to make Mexican food! And last night he made our version of Pad Siew. I am about to eat some for lunch...

I hope your 9 days allow for a lunch time run with me next week :) (If I can get my sports bra on by myself)

Unknown said...

Whooo!!! Jason's awesome; for getting you out there to run and making dinner!!

Also, I never feel weird wearing my visor. I didn't even notice the rain during my marathon because of it! And it even kept me occupied because after a while the rain started falling off of the brim and I watched them falling. :-)

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