I wake up at 5 am on weekdays. Yesterday I slept in all the way to 7. Imagine my annoyance to not wake up until 9 this morning. Actually, it was 20 till 9, then I laid in bed till around 9, then I dawdled around and checked facebook, and debated whether I was going to wear toxic sunscreen since I have no alternatives at the moment, and played with the dog, and fed the cat...all the while knowing that when I checked the hourly forecast last night, I wanted to have my run in by 9. I prefer to run when the "feels like" temperature is under 85. I can do 90, but it blows.
I know part of the issue was that my back has been hurting pretty bad since running on the treadmill. Yesterday I spent the better part of the day catching up on blog posts, and I'm sure sitting at the computer all day did not help my back. I definitely had a strain of fear running through me from the time I woke up about what another run would do to my back.
According to the training plan, today should be a 3 mile day. I could barely knock out one mile on the treadmill 2 days ago. I was optimistic, though...just...well, it took something like 9 runs before I could do 5K when I started back up in May. Not 3.
With annoyance and slowness, I slathered on toxic sunblock, put each and every hair up with 100 pins, threw on my under armour shirt, and headed out. I'm out of contacts, so I couldn't wear sunglasses, which sucked, because it was frakking bright out when I finally left at 9:45.
I ran from the driveway, to the street, around the corner and back up the next street until I was about even with the house (.11K/.07 mi)...and I realized I forgot my knee straps. With a string of curse words (on Sunday morning - I am a bright ray of sunshine in people's lives), I turned around and walked back to the house.
Got the straps, waited until 9:50 to make it an easy to remember time, and set out again.
It was hot. Excruciatingly hot. And although there are a lot of trees on my route, the sun was just at the right angle where there was virtually no shade. I psyched myself out of this run from the get-go.
I made it to the little street past the school in 8 minutes (1.08K/.67 mi -- not including intial out/back, although I do include it in the totals below), but the idea of climbing the next hill made me crazy, so I walked up it over the course of a minute (1.21K/.75 mi). Crossed the busy street, and ran just to around the curve over another minute (1.35K/.84 mi).
This was not going well.
I decided to go ahead and turn away from home to walk my two blocks out/two blocks back, basically affirming that if I had to alternately run/walk every minute for the next 45, I was going to finish the 3 mile goal today. It was 5 minutes of walking before I got back to the intersection (1.7K/1.05 mi).
I ran the two blocks back to the school in the two minutes, then called it (1.95K/1.21 mi). I was still debating finishing the 3 miles, even if I had to walk it all. Part of the reason I wanted to stop is because it's just too hard to remember all these times and points and figure out what I want to count in my numbers for the day. Stupid. Part of the reason was because my flesh was on FIRE. I didn't feel too bad - I wasn't dizzy or sick, but it was horrid to be out in it. Even though it's hotter in the evenings, I think there's something to be said for having more shade and a day's worth of fuel in you. This, today, just wasn't working.
So I headed for home. It took me another 13 minutes to get there (3.05K/1.9 mi).
Not sure where this leaves me on the plan for the half. In theory, I should be running 4 miles next week, something I have only done once. I had already decided I would run 2 miles on each of the run days this week (ala week 3), even though Wednesday of week 2 is supposed to just be a mile. We'll see. One way or another I'm getting up to 13.1, and now that I have gotten my refresher course on procrastination effects on summer runs out of the way, I think it will speed things along.
Weather: 81, sunny, 5 mph (no), 79% humidity, feels like 87
Time: 10am; Run 1, Walk 1, Run 8, Walk 1, Run 1, Walk 5, Run 2, Walk 13 (absurd.)
Distance: 3.27K/2.04 mi
Elevation: +43/-44.2/net -1.3 ft (doesn't include initial out/back)
Just run: 12:00
Distance: 1.58K/.99 mi
5K/10K: 41:39/1:28:02
Pace: 11.94
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