A whole lot of running this weekend. Back on track!

Ok, lets get right to it. I did not run thursday, because I had my study group and did not get home until...oh 11:30 at night. I did however run every day since. Yes, I ran Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

So lets get to the run recaps.

Friday, I did not want to run. My daughter had been home sick on friday. She was super clingy and cranky, and my husband was ready for a break. Also, I was feeling like I might be coming down with whatever she had. I would like you to note the time that I actually got around to doing the run. 9:18 pm. Yeah, latest run ever, but I did it. And not only did I do it, I did four miles (because I thought that was what was on the schedule,) where as I was only supposed to do three. Oops. But the run felt good, no issues with my legs, or my lungs.  Then again I wasn't really pushing it, just kind of cruising along at my normal pace, until the end there where I just wanted to be done, so I kicked up the speed on the treadmill a bit.

Saturday, I was supposed to join my running group for a group run at 9am, which should not have been an issue. Except it was. Saturday morning I felt like I had been hit by a truck. My head hurt, my sinuses were stuffed, my throat was sore enough that I didn't want to talk and I ached all over. So I did not get out of bed. My husband was nice enough to take care of the kidlet and let me sleep....until 11. I literally did not get out of bed until 11:00. When I rolled over and saw the clock I couldn't believe it. I never sleep that late (anymore...) but I did feel a whole lot better, still not 100% but I'd say 85%. Unfortunately, right as I was getting up, my daughter was going down for a nap, and my husband was also. He had developed a giant migraine while letting me sleep, and needed to sleep it off. So while the house slept, I did stuff around the house that I'd been putting off. Like assembling the "kitchen" set my daughter had gotten for christmas. The next person who buys her something with assembly required who does not do said assembly is getting a swift kick to the...you know it'd be easier to just make them take it back. Anyways, the upshot was I didn't get on the treadmill until later that evening, and I was really not feeling it. I toughed it out for three miles, trying to keep my pace respectable, but you can tell in my splits that I was really struggling at some points. I was running on tired legs, I know, and I was also trying not to push too hard, since I knew I had a long run the next day.

Sunday I tried to schedule myself a little better. After our customary Brunch, and an outing to buy my daughter new shoes (she outgrows things every couple of months right now,) some house cleaning (that desperately needed to be done) and some other random procrastination, I set myself up best I could on the treadmill. I had a salted carmel Gu, a Honey stinger waffle, a bag of Honey stinger gel chew things (hey I wanted variety, and I'm still trying to figure out what works for me,) and a giant bottle of water.

I was really nervous because this was my first real long run attempt since the holidays.  This was also the first time I had attempted to run three days in a row in a very long time.

As soon as the run started, I realized one mistake I had made. The water bottle I had chosen had a large mouth, instead of a nice sport top. This made drinking from it problematic. I was feeling ok otherwise for the beginning of the run. I kept my pace right around cruising speed for me and let myself get caught up in the movie I was watching (Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol if your interested.) About half an hour into the run, I started in on the Gu packet. I was curious to see how I would tolerate it while actually running. I "sipped" the packet, taking small amounts chased by small amounts of water. Again the water remained a problem, and I ended up getting a bit spilled down the front of my chin as I tried to drink. The Gu itself was easy to take though, and my stomach seemed to handle it fine.

I started to hit a wall at about 50 minutes. I was just mentally tired. Even the movie was not keeping my mind off the fact that I had been running so long. I do think it was more mental fatigue than physical, and I made a pact with myself that I could take a walk break at one hour. I tried to eat some of the gummies (since they were already open) but I found them hard to chew, since at that point I was breathing through my mouth, and chewing required me to close my mouth. I still like the gummies, but I think the Gu packets are winning as far as ease of use while running.

I took my walk break at one hour, and had some water, since it was much easier to drink from the bottle while walking. I had an epiphany that I should slow down to drink from the bottle. Yeah brilliant right? So for the rest of the run, I would slow the treadmill down a bit every five minutes or so to drink some water. I did take another walk break about ten minutes after the first one, but then I powered through the rest of the run.

After taking a look at my splits, I'm happy that I managed to keep them right around 11 min/miles. In fact my average pace was 11'17" min/miles, which I'm pretty happy with. I realize that my times might be a little off (the nike+ app has been notorious for reporting bad splits, and I tend to run a little slower outside,) but I think it's close enough that I should be ok running seven miles right around 11:30 min/miles without feeling like I'm dying.

There were a couple of points (right around 3 miles, and right around 5 miles are when I really remember) that I did not think I would finish out the 7 miles. I kept having the argument with myself that if I stopped short of the seven miles I would be disappointed with myself, but then again, it was still a respectable run, and I could always repeat the training week right? But the fact that that half marathon is coming up fast kept me going. I know I still have a long time to train for it (14, almost 15 weeks,) but it still feels like it's coming up faster than I'm training for. Oh yeah and according to nike+ I ran my fastest 10k so far!

After I finished, I walked for a bit, sipping water and having another gummie chew thing. Then I jumped in the shower to "ice" my legs a bit and rinse off, since we still had to go grocery shopping (which involves about half an hour of walking around Wegmans.) We stopped and had dinner at the Food Bar thing at Wegmans, and I tried my best not to Eat. All. The. Foods.

By the time we got home, my knees were not happy with me. After we got the kidlet to bed, I basically curled up on the couch with a heating pad on my back (which was now complaining fiercely, most likely from carrying said kidlet,) and my legs up on the coffee table. I had to take some advil before bed, but my legs feel fine today.

Today I have a rest day on the schedule, I'm planning on doing some light yoga to help loosen up my muscles and some foam rolling to keep things from feeling awful on tuesday. I feel good about being back on the schedule, even if I did switch it around a bit to fit the runs in this last week. The fact that I was able to do three runs in a row and still finish out the seven mile long run on sunday shows me just how far I've come with my training. It's a good feeling.