Me. At the beginning of last week.
I picked things up towards the end of the week and had a decent week of "running."
There were two notable runs:
1. A Tempo Run that just happen to be in the middle of the Tom King Half Marathon.
2. A 9.5 mile Trail Recovery Run.
The tempo run was great. My plan was to run in the 9s for a few miles and then turn it into a progression run with the last few miles being around 8:00 pace.
HAHAHAHHAH. Yeah right.
I started off in the back, in what FELT like a slow start. But in reality, my first miles were 8:43, 8:26, 8:25. So, at that point, I was like... ehhhh.. fuck the progression, let's just see if I can hold on.
8:36, 8:23, 8:17, 8:17, 8:16, 8:18
I was holding on! And feeling great! I mean, it felt comfortably hard. But, I felt good. Really good. I was passing people easily and not ever getting passed. And then all the sudden I see the pack ahead has stopped at the entrance to a bridge. And I can hear a guy yelling STOP to the runners and then all I can hear is the word GATOR. And in my runner brain.. I'm thinking. GATOR as in ALLI-Gator. So, I get there and have to stop and we are all standing there pissed and people are like.. "glad I'm not running a PR" and everyone is grumbling and the guy is like... "Sorry folks, we have to get this gator across for a medical emergency." And then I was like... ohhhhh ATV gator. Got it. So, the Gator finally passes and we set back out on our merry way. According to my watch and my chip time, I was only standing around for 20 seconds. But, that 20 seconds felt more like 3 minutes.
Apparently the stop got me going, because I ran that mile in my fastest pace of the day: 7:46. Although, to be fair, I feel like the mile markers might have been incorrectly placed, because I don't think I slowed down much, but my next mile read 8:57.
And then, as if someone flipped an energy switch... I just completely DIED. My last two miles were a 9:14 and 10:13. It felt like I was running through quicksand. I chalked it up to probably starting out a bit fast and not doing a lot of speedwork lately and just rolled with it. FIGHTING the urge to just stop and walk the entire rest of the way in. I was absolute toast. I ran the last .1 (which is super exciting because it's on the field at Titans Stadium and people are cheering and you're on the jumbotron) at 10:00 pace. Bwhahahahahahah.
Anyway, I was pretty happy because I got a fantastic 11 mile tempo run in with a 2 mile cool down.
Added Bonus... The KoB ran the thing as a training run and won $100 bucks. Goddamn, he is such a show-offy asshole.
The rest of my Saturday was spent at a baby shower for my niece:
Is she not the most adorable baby in the world?
And then I ate a helluva lot of food/beer/ice cream. Yay for anniversary re-do!
Sunday, Leo and I drove up to Beaman Park to meet Melissa for a trail run.
The three of us ran 9.5 glorious miles in that park. I am in complete love with Beaman Park. There are tons of trails and the trails are in such fantastic shape. It's all run-able and there are some good hills, but they aren't ridiculous. Basically, it is trail heaven. And as an added bonus: there were only 2 other people on the trail! BLISS.
This is definitely going to be a regular weekend run for me.
The rest of Sunday was spent mostly lounging around and enjoying rare cuddling...
You thought I was going to say from the KoB?
Yeah, no, The KoB doesn't cuddle.
The muskrat doesn't typically cuddle either.
That's why photo documentation was required.
One tired, dirty, stinky, happy muskrat.
The week got off to slow, crappy start... but it finished strong. It was a good week.
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2 comments:
I'm sure the sudden stop/rest was one reason for sudden speed death!
Yeah, it was pretty annoying. But, I'm not sure it had much to do with my drop in energy. I dunno... I just don't think my fitness was there to keep going for those last couple of miles.
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