Bring on the Double Digit Runs
Today I finally cracked double digits and did a 10 mile run. Total time was 1:22:15, an average 8:14 mile pace.
I’ve been contemplating running the Rochester half and Niagara Falls full marathons, or the full Rochester marathon, but had some serious doubts. Today’s run felt great. I didn’t push any of it and wasn’t hurting at all during any part of it. In fact, I know my true average for the run was actually under an 8:00 mile the whole way - right before the end of mile 5 I ran into a guy from my soccer team and stopped to talk to him. Eventually I stopped my watch, but the mile still clocked in at 10:44.
So why was today so much easier? I think it had to do with a bunch of things:
- it wasn’t 85 plus degrees out as many of the recent runs have been
- there was a nice breeze blowing
- I’ve been packing carbs by eating lots of pasta
- my iPod Shuffle had both power and and working headphones
On top of those reasons, I was running on a runner’s high, something I hadn’t felt in a long time. It was a shame I ran into my teammate at the park - I think I was just starting to feel it. I saw, but didn’t recognize him as he was coming towards me, but was so focused on the run that I tried dodging him a couple times while he tried to get in my way and get my attention. Luckily the high kicked back in after I started up again.
The only negative thing about the run was that there was so much wind that my headphones kept getting pulled out of my ears! The new set of in-ear Jabra c120s for my LG vx8100 cell phone/mp3 player I picked up when I last set died already died, so I had my iPod Shuffle and a set of Phillips over-the-ear headphones on. The iPod was actually misbehaving as well - it would only play tracks sequentially (no random) and repeated most of them twice. I’m a little fed up with music players during my runs lately, but can’t stand to run without them.
While the run gave me a lot of confidence that I can run one of the two full marathons, the Smart Coach tool at RunnersWorld.com doesn’t output an accurate training plan for me for the time I have left. I had ran most of a mix of the Hal Higdon beginner and intermediate training plans last year, but finding four days a week to run is tough and one must manually plot their training plan.