Even though BBC is spending this week out at Edgemont Park I opted to head out here regardless for my run last night. Since the general terrain has some rolling hills I figured this would be a good route as I'm going to shoot for speed work instead of hills on Wednesday. It was 54F (12C) and really overcast out so it was time to search for a second pair of running tights... Will my skirts ever see the light of day this year again...?? I was aiming for 5 mi, but if I felt good I wanted to push for 6. The first mile is all uphill so I just felt so slow as my body got used to running and to going uphill. There were just a few people out on the pathway last night so it was pretty quiet. Something funny was going on as something in my GI was sloshing about in time with the Gatorade sloshing about in my water bottle. That was an interesting feeling. When I was about 2 mi in I decided I felt good enough that it was definitely going to be 6 so I vowed to keep going, despite the sloshing. A few minutes later it dawned on me that I was feeling so good because I had been running downhill for a pretty long time now... To tell you the truth the uphill on the way back felt pretty good, so evidently progress is being made. The highlight of the run was definitely when I had 1 mi left to go and there were three young deer on the hillside next to me. They were so close... I finished up the 6 mi for the evening feeling great despite the sloshing the whole way.
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I was remembering my first ever 10K while I was running last night. It was the Vancouver Sun Run in 2000 (the third largest 10K race in the world). I was not a runner and only signed up because I had friends that were doing the run as well. I tried to run on the treadmill at my gym but really only lasted 20 min and I really questioned how I was going to do this for an hour plus. The day of the race I just ran and it felt great to cross the finish line. Then the next day it felt like my quads would never be the same as I was so stiff and sore from the race. It is an amazing feeling that I can now blow 6 milers out of the water.
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Back when I ran the Sun Run I was in Toastmasters, and one of the guys in my group wrote a speech on his first marathon experience. I wish I could remember more about his speech, but I talked to him about the marathon afterwards. He said that if you wanted to train for a marathon you had to be comfortable running 6 mi runs at least three times a week before even contemplating to train. Remembering the pain after my first 10K I was pretty sure that I would never feel comfortable running 6 mi that regularly. Looks like I was wrong on that one, eh?
3 comments:
Amazing how much we grow and change in our running over the years! Congrats on yet another one for the books.
"Then the next day it felt like my quads would never be the same as I was so stiff and sore from the race." But you only get to feel that way ONCE for every distance. Your body will never complain so much for a 10k again. With experience the distances just seem to get smaller and smaller.
If you can polish off 6 miles like nuthin' then you're going to kick BUTT in that half marathon!
Wow, it seems to have gotten cold fast? I hope your skirts aren't packed away for good! It cooled down a little here ... we were only 89F today!
I was happy to be able to try out one of my new RunningSkirts.com purchases today (I went over to their sale after your plug for it!).
Previously, I've only run in Moving Comfort skirts with compression shorts (due to fear of too much exposure!), but I was plesantly surprised how comfortable they are. No problems with the skirt flipping up!
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