Saturday, 12/26

Waaaaaay too much food was consumed from Wednesday to Friday, so Saturday was another long run. And as much as I wanted to run trails, the several inches of rain we got on Thursday night and Friday morning meant that wasn't going to happen. I talked Stephanie into running on the nearby Greenway, which to her dismay was flooded at one point, and apparently not everyone enjoys wading through mid-calf water when it's 45 degrees. However, in my NB 790's, I just kept moving, and my shoes drained quickly. One problem I couldn't avoid was a general feeling of "blah", along with mild asthma. Planned to cut the run short to 4.8 miles, but at the spot we needed to turn, I felt like going further, while Stephanie was having stomach issues, so she headed home. I picked up the pace at this point (we had gone 3.51 miles in 35:26, 10:06 pace), which was easy since this part was downhill or flat for most of the way back.

When I got to the Greenway exit by Stephanie's house, my Garmin had only registered 5.6 miles, not the 6.8 or so that it should have shown to make it a 7 mile run. I was still feeling good, so I decided to just keep going and make my own path home. This also meant I ran through the flooded section again, expressing derision for all those who turned around by splashing joyfully through it. When I got back to the house, I had done 7.26 miles, in 69 minutes. 10K was just under 60 minutes, and I averaged a 9:06/mile over the last 3.75.

Really felt good about this, since I chose to keep going rather than surrender to the desire to veg on the couch. And then chose to go another 1.8 miles, when I could have once again gone back to veg. And my legs still feel good, 2 days later, so hopefully my legs didn't mind 21 miles in only 3 runs this week. I know I need to start getting an actual long run in each week, it's mainly just an issue of time and location. I wanted to do 10 or more at Whitewater on Thursday, but didn't have the time. And with the wet conditions recently, when I have had the time, it's been closed. It's tough to work up the motivation to run long on the roads without company, while I have no problem running long on trails by myself. Greenways are somewhat in between, but if the recent weather trends keep up, I'll have to spend more time on them, and just learn to deal.