Sunday, January 23, 2011

10 miles!

Well, I passed the 10 mile test. I was especially anxious about yesterdays run because I haven't run 10 miles since the Princess last year and by 10 miles I was walking. My fascia ripped at 9 miles and things went downhill from there.

I couldn't sleep on Friday night and was up way before my alarm on Saturday. I also got my period on Friday so that always makes me stress about running. The good news there is that I won't have it for the race. That is a huge answer to prayer!

It was 17 degrees when I started running. I ran with Julie (my usual running buddy) and Alice joined us for about 6 miles. It was FREEZING! It took almost 4 miles for my fingers to get warm. Everything else was fine and there were actually times I was sweating. There was a wind, though so I'd go from sweating to freezing. I'm posting my splits just so I have them. It really helps to look back and see what my pace was. I do know that they were too fast. All my long runs have been too fast this year. They are over a minute faster than last year's training. I'm not sure why. I'm not trying to run fast. In face, Julie and I are always saying we need to slow down and it feels like we're slowing down, but we're not. My training plan says I should be running them at a 10:33 pace.

Average Pace 9:33

Mile 1 9:54
Mile 2 9:18
Mile 3 9:18
Mile 4 9:23
Mile 5 9:32
Mile 6 9:28
Mile 7 9:25
Mile 8 9:32
Mile 9 9:49
Mile 10 9:47

I felt great at the end of the run and definitely could have kept running. My foot hurt a little on the last half mile. I iced it twice and stretched a lot. My right hip has been really tight after my longer runs. I've found rolling it out on a foam roller really helps.

5 weeks to race day! I'm so excited!

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

ramblings...

I did it again and I'm not even going to go there. Drop the guilt over neglecting the blog.

Now that I have that out of the way.....

Less than 6 weeks until race day. This is geeky, but every time I go to the Disney Princess Half Marathon website and surf around I get knots in my stomach. seriously. I know; get a grip. I'm walking that line between being super excited and terrified. I've put my goal out there (meaning the words "I want to break 2 hours" have actually come out of my mouth when other people are around and not just spoken in my head), and I'm feeling some fear of failure pressure. It's a good thing (I think).

So far my longest run is 9 miles and I've thrown in speed work and tempo runs during the week. My training is actually going unbelievably well and I'm hitting all my goals. The only nagging factor is my foot. My plantar fasciitis is teasing me. Right now it's only talking to me- soreness in my arch and pain in my heel, but not when I run. I've gotten new shoes that I'm wearing only for running (except for right now- I stepped in dog poo with my other pair and am too lazy to clean it off). I'm wearing sneakers all the time I'm not sleeping (yes, even to church!) I'm icing after every run, massaging my foot with a golf ball every night, wearing my night splint and stretching like a mad woman. I don't think there's anything else I can do to help it. I have a 10 mile run on Saturday and that will be a huge test because 9 miles is where I fell apart at the last Princess race. If at any point my foot goes from talking to me to yelling at me I will immediately back off.

My eating isn't great but it isn't horrible either. I haven't lost the 10 pounds I wanted to. I'm not running as many miles each week as I probably should, but you know what? I'm okay with that. I can't do it all. I am a perfectionist by nature (at least that's how I want myself to look), but I've decided it's not worth it. I can only do what I can do and in my opinion, that's enough.