Friday, October 23, 2009

Ulterior Motives

My car is packed and I’m picking my kids up from school this afternoon and heading out of town. My husband is working a couple of hours away and we are going to visit him. The reasons…..There are a few. The ones I tell him and my dear friend whose pampered chef party I’m missing this evening are: I miss him, we really need some family time and the kids are begging to visit daddy! These are partially true but the real driving factors that keep circulating through my brain are: it is supposed to be 10 degrees warmer there and sunny, I want to do my long run along the river with trees and hills instead of my usual truck route with soybean fields and annoying dogs, and I want new shoes that I can’t find in the booming metropolis of 2000 people that I currently live in. My guess is we will all come home happy campers!

My marathon was 3 weeks ago. I am running a half on October 31st. Somewhere along the way here my brain has told me I have lost fitness and my body is cooperating with my brain. I decided to just keep running between races and not follow any sort of plan with the idea of starting a new training plan in December to get ready for Boston. This is not working out for me. Apparently , if I don’t have a piece of paper that I can put a big X on everyday I can’t run. I cut my mileage back the week after the marathon but this week I am back up to 60 miles. Yesterday, I attempted an 8 mile run with the goal of 5 miles at 7:20 pace which is my goal half marathon pace. I have done this several times and this is slower than my 10K pace and only 6 seconds faster than my recent half marathon pace. My five miles averaged 7:33 and I felt like I'd been hit by a mack truck. What is wrong with me? Yes, I have run higher mileage this week , yes, I did not bother to run my easy run days easy but still, I should be getting staying the same at least, not getting slower. I am running a true slow recovery run today without my Garmin and I’m going chalk up yesterday to a bad day. I am also thoroughly looking forward to running my half marathon on Halloween in the projected 21 degree weather. Life is Good!

5 comments:

BOBBI McCORMICK said...

Way to go getting to Boston you will love it!!!

robinbb said...

21 degrees is way too cold for a half marathon. I am guessing you were just tired from your previous workouts. You ran 20 miles on Sunday, you obviously haven't lost fitness. Don't psyche yourself out.

TMB @ RACING WITH BABES said...

Congrats on qualifying for Boston! I wish I was half as fast as you.

Have you tried Zappos.com for your shoes? I can almost always find mine on there at a much better price than our local running store!

Jenn said...

Thanks for the shoe advice! I do often get my shoes online but for some reason I'm always trying to find some new and better so I needed to go try a bunch on. Came home empty-handed so I'm going to check out Zappo's now! Thanx

Rookie on the Run said...

Thanks for leaving a note on my blog! I've been enjoying reading about your family and your running. Your daughters are beautiful.

I'm looking forward to reading more!