Yesterday afternoon, it was hot. Beautiful, but in a 'not a cloud in the sky' kinda way. No cloud cover means no relief from the heat beating down on you, and I don't mind saying that it just saps the life right out of me when that happens. Like most runners, I much prefer early morning or early evening, for that exact reason. That was not to be, however; I have no place close enough to my house to run, which means I have to run while I'm in town.
To top things off, 3:30 rolled around, and I realized I had been so busy all day that I hadn't even touched my water bottle yet....not good. Inadequate hydration + run day = bad day at Black Rock.
Still...I was determined to give it my best shot, so I ate a Clif bar on my way out the door, and headed to town. I drug my feet a bit at Walmart, which bought me another half-hour to let the shadows get a bit longer, and I headed back to the Tweetsie, thinking that it would be the shadiest place to run.
Since I had to run for 45 minutes, I decided to give the as-yet-unexplored portion of the trail a try. At least I wouldn't get bored. So I parked as close as possible, and timed my warm up so that I would be able to cross the one major intersection without hampering the running part of my program. Once I started running, I didn't want to have to stop.
Right off, I knew I was in trouble. My feet felt like lead, my whole body was tired and drained of energy, the heat was killing me, and I wanted to stop after the first tenth of a mile. I knew this was going to be one of those runs that I would have to fight all the way through, just to be able to finish, but I was determined not to throw in the towel. This was supposed to be a slow walk/run, so I decided that as awesome as my last run pace was, this one wasn't going to come near it...I just had no speed in me at all, and it was a wonder that I was able to do more than walk, as it was. So...I just concentrated on laying one foot down in front of the other, and not stopping the run. I really, really didn't want to walk this.
This went on for 35 minutes. I tried to calculate my time so that I would run five minutes farther on the out leg than I did on the back leg, to make up for the five minute warmup time. But I keep forgetting that it's 45 minutes on TOP of the warm up, so I didn't go quite as far as I needed to (note to self) before turning around for home. By the time I got to the final stretch (which was full sun...no shade at all), I was done. I knew if I kept pushing myself, I was going to wind up in the dirt, and I felt like my pace was shot anyway, so I walked the better part of the last ten minutes, blowing like a Derby reject the whole way. I ran when I could, but my legs were jello and had no strength at all. I thought I'd never hear the 'workout complete' announcement, and almost cried from relief when I finally did.
I didn't look at the stats until I got back to the car and finished stretching. Then, sitting in the shade behind the wheel, I took a peek, expecting it to be a disaster....
It was as bad as I thought. I usually start out a little rough, it takes a while to get my groove on, and then I start getting tired. But even in the groove, my pace was 16:30. Hell, I can walk that fast. But it wasn't horrible, and considering the way I'd felt through the run, I was actually ok with it.
I felt considerably better, however, when I looked at the interval time as a whole...
16:29 sounds infinitely preferable to 16:30, don't you think? I mean...after all, it is a whole hundredth of a second faster.
I did my best not to beat myself up too much on the way home (all the while guzzling the water I should have drank earlier in the day). I did run, and I did run most of the way, even as overly humid and underly hydrated as the case was.
But what really got me was the email I received about halfway home...
Getting out of the car was a treat. I wobbled all the way into the house and barely got to the couch before completely collapsing. I may not have run great, I decided...but whatever I did, it was a workout and a half. Sitting there, still trying to recoup, I looked up the run stats on the Runkeeper website....OMG...I WAS RUNNING STRAIGHT UPHILL THE WHOLE FIRST HALF!!! No wonder it kicked my tail!!
Looking at it in that light, it's pretty apparent now why my pace was so much slower than Saturday's pace, and why I felt so sapped so quickly (sun notwithstanding). Looking at it in that light, I'm pretty freaking amazed at the pace I did run, and very, very proud of myself for sticking to it and going the distance. Every day, with every run, I'm proving to myself that I CAN DO THIS!!!
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