I was originally supposed to do a half-marathon today (as part of my ramping up for my marathon in a month), but because of my earlier Achilles' injury this fall (and because no one ever replied to my email to answer my question about pace times), I ended up not signing up like I had planned. But that's OK, because today I ended up having the best run of my life (so far, I hope) and it was two whole miles longer than the half marathon would have been.
For the past year in a half (or maybe a little longer, I tend to block out the painful running memories), I've been struggling to run. I've done a bunch of 5Ks, a few four mile races and even a half marathon last February. But through all those things, and all my training, I never was able to consistently run (or jog) for the entirety. While I do believe in Jeff Galloway's Run-Walk-Run method, and it has gotten me far, I really just wanted to have that feeling of truly going the distance running the whole way.
I've been working with my trainer Tara at the gym to do some intervals to help me increase my speed, but today's run wasn't about speed (good thing, since my miles ranged from 11:30 to 14:30 in pace), today's run was about trying to run for as long as I could. Tara and my dad, have both been telling me for ages that the reason I end up running for a mile and then walking for a bit, or running for 5 minutes and then walking a minute, wasn't because of my conditioning or my athletic ability, but because of my brain. All my "but my legs hurt" or "I can't breathe" are just apparently excuses from my mind, according to them. It does make sense, as I was the kid in high school who sucked wind finishing the obligatory mile around the track, and maybe once or twice hid behind the bleachers so the teacher would think I'd done more laps around the outdoor track than I actually had. I never cheated in academics, but gym was not my thing.
So while I've been doing a bunch of training "runs" leading up to the marathon, of varying lengths, today's was the longest... at 15.1 miles. It's the furthest I've ever even attempted, even doing a run-walk method. I mean, I did hike about 25 miles a few weekends ago, but that's slow and walking and a totally different medium. There's something different about the repetitive pounding of running on the multi-use path near my house for over three hours. I'd rather climb mountains. Or do anything. Really anything. Me and running, we may have come to a mutual tolerance, but its never going to be my sport of choice. Its always going to be a chore.
My goal going out today wasn't to run the entire 15 miles. And yes, according to my marathon plan I should be up to 18 at this point, but my training is all messed up because of injuries and whatnot, and now I'm just trying to the best that I can, in order to get as good as I can before marathon day on Nov. 18th. Anyway, my goal for myself was to run three miles straight, not worrying about speed or anything, just running without taking a break for walking. And I did. I kept my heart rate pretty low, around 140, and noticed that when I got up around 155 or so that my breathing got more labored, and decided that today was about endurance and not getting under an 11 minute mile. So I jogged along. And at the 5K mark (3.2 miles) I was feeling good. Not fast, but good. So I kept going, and decided I'd try to get to 5 miles.
At mile 5, I still felt good, so long as I didn't rush my pace too much, when I did push it, the achey knees and heavy breathing started up. But at mile 6, I had to make a quick pit stop where I refilled my water, sucked down a GU energy gel (my new savior) and made a fast dash into the potty. I knew there wouldn't be another chance for another 8 miles. So I walked for a few minutes out of the ladies, to get my legs back in gear, and then after about 30 seconds or so, got back to my slow and steady pace.
At mile 8, I actually felt awesome. Perhaps the elusive runner's high that I've never truly experienced, or the sugar rush from the energy gel (I'm betting its this one), but I was honestly thinking that maybe I'd extend my run beyond the 14/15 I'd planned to the full 18. I know, craziness. But I felt great, and looking at my Nike GPS breakdown, I did some negative splits at that point and was running about a full minute to a minute and a half faster than the 14:00 I'd been doing for a few miles. It was probably the best I've ever felt running. I was smiling at people passing by in the other direction, singing along to my music on my headphones (yes, I'm aware this makes me look/sound insane) and feeling pretty fantastic.
At mile 9.5, I saw a woman wipe out and stopped to check to make sure she was OK (she was) and then about 2/10s of a mile later, my hamstrings tightened up. Lesson learned? Don't stop, it hurts more to restart. I did some lunges and stretches, and felt pretty OK. Well, until mile 11.That's where I felt like I was going to die and just wanted to stop and walk for the rest of the four miles back to where I'd parked my car. Side note: I hate that I have to drive to go running, but the paths are so much nicer than running the dangerous streets around me that it is worth the 15 minute drive... at least until I have to get my legs to function to drive home.
And I could have walked the rest of the four miles, and still felt like I'd had a successful day. After all, my goal was to see if I could run for three miles straight, and I'd well surpassed that. But the idea of walking for four more miles, and tacking on probably at least another 15 minutes to this long journey didn't appeal. I just wanted to be done. So I grabbed a second GU (which I hadn't planned on using, but kept in case of emergency), did some quick hamstring stretches and got back on the track after less than a minute break.
Then I slow-jogged (like a slow jam for the running set?) the rest of the way (unfortunately, these last miles is where 90 percent of the hills (which aren't big, but are still hills) on this path are. And I kept jogging at a snail's pace, but did manage to pass a woman with a cane and a motley crew of kids wobbling around on their bikes, so I'll take that as a small victory. And then I started cursing at the inanimate mile markers on this path. Why do they need to be every one tenth of a mile? Why couldn't they be at the half or quarter mile points? I felt like the markers were somehow taunting me making me seem like I was going nowhere really slowly.
But eventually, I saw my car. And nearly started crying with relief. To go from run/walking to doing 15 miles in one stretch, took quite toll on my legs... and my spirit towards the end. But I did it! And I'm super happy about that, as I sit on the couch with my legs screaming at me even four hours later. Which means that I may have broken through that mental barrier that was keeping me from actually doing more running than walking. I can't wait to tell Tara and my dad.
The upside is that I feel better about doing the marathon than I have since I signed up. I really imagined that I'd get shuffled to the half marathon end because I couldn't keep the 16 mile pace up for 26 miles, but my GPS told me that only once (around mile 11, did I even get close to hitting 15:00. So if I keep up my random Angel schedule of training for the next month, I believe I may finish this thing without getting a DNF. And given that this may be the only marathon I ever do (unless I go crazy in my late 40's and do a full Iron Man), it would be awesome to have that medal as proof that I went 26.2 whole miles and ran/jogged the whole way, instead of walked the majority of it.
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