Until the weekend rolled around.
But it's not for lack of planning. As you may remember, the plan was to run 12 miles Saturday with a nice 3 mile recovery run on Sunday. There was one obstacle...work. This was my weekend to work. Which means 11-straight days of getting to work at 8am, making it very difficult to squeeze in 12 miles in the slightly cooler morning hours.
But I was determined to stay on track. I set my alarm for 4am Saturday morning and was out the door by 4:20. I had decided that I would do my 3 mile out-and-back loop from the house...4 times. I thought this would be the safest thing to do rather than trying to run 12 miles in uncharted territory...in the dark.
I had my head lamp, so I could at least see until the sun started to lighten the sky...because, you see, on my rural road, there are about 2 street lamps for every 3 miles of road. What happened next was not so much a run but more of a series of me being startled about every 2.73 minutes. First, 2 crazy raccoons that ran TOWARD me instead of away...no wonder they end up as road kill so often. Then, there was a rabbit, some unidentified creature scurrying across the road, endless rustling in the woods...
And then there were the spider webs. With many trees hanging over the road, and no cars passing through for hours, the spiders had made giant webs that extended from the tree tops all the way down to the street...perfectly positioned for me to run into and then feel like I had spiders all over me. It was like some horror movie...except I was running by choice, not because some scary monster was after me.
I made it to my turn around point, and I had already decided that I wasn't coming back. I made it home by 4:50 (still dark). Frustrated that my safe, easy (because its right out my front door)go-to route had failed me, I decided to just take a shower and rest until I had to get ready for work. 3 miles...check.
I thought I may get my miles in Saturday evening, but the yard work HAD to get done this weekend. So we did yard work and then had a date night...dinner and a movie (Despicable Me..Great movie! not really good for young kids though) and got home around 11:30, which meant no chance for a morning run before work on Sunday.
So, after work I waited...hiding indoors all afternoon waiting for the heat to subside. I checked weather.com which told me the temperature was 92...Heat index of 110! I'm never gonna make it 12 miles tonight...
But I did. It took starting at 8pm and finishing around 10pm, but I got it done. And I can sleep tonight knowing I accomplished what I set out to do this week.
The coming week tapers me back to 28 miles before a steady increase over the following 3 weeks which will be 32, 36, then 39 miles. This helps to prevent injury which is what I have to remind myself, so I don't end up overdoing it this week.
Monday: 4 miles at pace of 10:04min/mile
Tuesday: Pilates (1 hour)
Wednesday: Hills, 5 miles
Thursday: Time trial..this is where I'll go to the track, and after a mile or two warm up, I'll see how fast I can do 1 mile. I'll do one of these about every 4 weeks to see how my training has improved my speed. And Pilates (1 hour).
Friday: 4 miles at pace of 10:04
Saturday: 10 miles at pace of 10:04
Sunday: 4 miles easy.
Total: 28 miles
Time for bed...
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