>Hello, friends. I write to you tonight from my couch, having indulged in corn dogs and those little soft pretzel cheese thingies. Yes, that’s a technical term. I’m also enjoying orange creme soda. After our twenty-miler and lots of baking and cooking for First Sunday Lunch and the bake sale, I’m beat. Note to self: Never run 20 miles and then stand up for the rest of the day… owies.
Recap of the week, which was also spring break:
Sunday: nada
Monday: 5 @ 9:34 pace!
Tuesday: nothin’
Wednesday: seriously hem-hawed around for three hours before I got my butt out there. 5 @ 9:29 pace! Last mile was amazing at 9:00!!!! In the afternoon I went out with Amelia to do her C25K program.. that added 2 miles to my day.
Thursday: Cross-training at the gym – bike and elliptical for 30 min. each, some arm exercises.
Friday: rest rest rest!
Saturday: 20 miles @ 11:18… WOW. We knocked almost 20 seconds off our pace from the last time we ran 20 two weeks ago.
I feel like I really broke through a mental wall this week.. even though I didn’t run as much as I could have. On Wednesday I really felt like I was going to puke the entire time I was running, and I really didn’t want to go out, but I made myself do it and it ended up fabulous. That’s what usually happens.
And the 20-miler. Wow. I wasn’t nervous at all. I laid everything out the night before and filled my Camelbak. I drank about 40 oz. of Gatorade (the regular kind, not G2) and had some energy gummies that Gabi brought on the run. I felt so good at the end that I could have kept running. Seriously. Our last mile was 10:18.. usually we’re not pushing towards the end, just trying to get done! Mile 19 included a huge hill that we decided to walk.
The first ten miles, we had the wind at our backs and man did we feel it when we turned around to head back! You can see the difference in the splits:
Here’s the graph of my heart rate. Notice: no SVT! The spike around the first hour was the first crazy hill we had. We ran that one. And for the record, I really don’t know if I had an episode on my 13-miler last weekend.. my battery is going bad on my other watch. The other day it was trying to tell me that my HR was 203 when I wasn’t even half a mile into the run.. I would have felt that for sure.
I am on fire for this marathon and really feel like I could do it right now. Well, not right now, as I’m hella sore. Surprisingly, though, my knees and joints are not as sore. Our elevation gain/loss was 647 ft for the run this morning, and for the marathon it’s only going to be 82 or something. Even with an average pace of 11:18, I’d still have a sub-5 race!
I weighed myself at the gym on Thursday and was pleased to see that I haven’t gained or lost. I was concerned that my Lenten fast would cause me to lose a couple pounds and therefore give me an ulterior motive for the fast, but I guess I’ve been eating enough to maintain. That is totally fine with me. I don’t need to lose any more weight.. I’m at my ideal.
Next weekend I head up to Chicagoland for the Shamrock Shuffle 8K… hoping to kill that race! Since we did our last long run this weekend (we had to since I will be out of town the next two weekends), I don’t think running an aggressive race will be an issue since it’d still be three weeks out. That and it’s only (only) five miles.
On my way home from Gabi’s, I was listening to “Bones” by Hillsong off of their new album Aftermath, and there’s a line that says “Oh Jesus, alive in me”. Running makes me feel alive like nothing else could. I want to either make or find a shirt that says something like “Running: It’s what makes me feel alive”.
It’s brought a force to my life that’s made me more mature, more patient, more relaxed, more focused and believing that I can do things I never in my life thought I could do.
mercies per mile 