I haven't posted in so long! To be honest...I'm getting hooked on blogs..reading OTHER people's blogs..that is! I can't believe Bass Pro is just 1 month away! Cheryl and I did the 20 miler with the LRM group this weekend.
We started at the "traditional" meeting place, aka The Arts Center, for the first "marathon training" run of this season. We tried to get there early, but downtown Argenta was almost completely blocked off, due to the Big Dam Bridge 100 mile bike race. By the time we got there, it was almost 5:45...It was dark, of course...I do love that fall is making an appearance, however, the darkness arriving earlier in the evening and staying later in the morning is not my fav. The route pretty much took us through the whole of downtown Little Rock, past all the usual places...Central High, MLK, The Capitol, up Kavanaugh, down Cedar Hill and back to downtown via Titus Trail. We kept a pretty consistent pace for most of the run. Cheryl had her Garmin set for an 11:00 mile/min pace, sometimes we went way too fast..other times too slow. We averaged around a 10:45ish for the whole run. My feet were killing me at around mile 17 and I was ready to get that run OVERWITH!
I kept thinking to myself..."How in the HELL am I going to do 26 miles in a month?!" Cheryl basically talked me through the last 3 miles, and I was wondering how I will get through the race by myself...
On that note, I recently read a blog about a group of bloggers that run together and wondered how they handled running together at races when they all have differing speeds. They basically disperse at the finish line, so they can concentrate on their own races and not feel pressured to keep up or compete just to beat each other. For some reason, this post made me sigh in relief. I want to run with the girls..I mean, we are driving 5 hours to do the race together! But I am just not as fast as they are and when I run with them, my need to keep up goes against the common sense of not starting out too fast and burning out early! So, I have decided to start out alone. I haven't necessarily imposed that on myself, but I want to have a good race, despite whether I can "keep up" with the girls or not. At the Tupelo 14 Miler, I started out WAY TOO FAST, and although I finished in a decent time, I ended up pulling my hip AGAIN. I don't want to chance that in the marathon. I hate to put time goals on myself, mostly because I am afraid I will fail, but I would love to finish in under 5 hours. I feel that I have been working hard in running clinic, and I really hope it makes a difference.
This weekend is a 14 miler and I'm looking forward to a "short" run (haha)!
