Holy miles, Batman. It’s getting up there. I am on a runners’ high after this morning’s long run, so let’s get right to all the fun details of the week!
Week 10
Monday – Rest
Tuesday – 4.15 miles
Wednesday – Rest
Thursday – 8.00 miles
Friday – 4.08 miles
Saturday – Rest
Sunday – 17.35 miles
Total for Week 10: 33.58 miles
I took Monday as a rest day again and ran Tuesday instead. This finished off September and I tallied up my miles for the month…
I missed PiYo class on Wednesday, hopefully this week I get back to it. Wednesday’s run, I moved to Thursday because it was raining. We had 8 miles to do instead of 7 so we changed up our route just a little bit. I also found $6 laying on the ground while running – BONUS! Friday, I ran a solo 4 miles a little later in the morning. All 3 weekday runs were good and I ended the week feeling good about going into a new long run distance of 17 miles.
I planned out a 17 mile route and guesstimated it to take about 4 hours, maybe a little less. Amazingly, I had not nerves or jitters going into this run, I was just excited to get out there and do it. Especially since we had our first cold front come through yesterday and I knew it would be cool for this run. I was in bed by 8:45 but didn’t fall asleep until around 10. Before I knew it, the alarm was going off at 3:30am. Good grief that is early but I was ready to go. I ate pumpkin bread for breakfast, packed water and fuel, and headed to the Memorial Causeway for our 4:30am start. I planted my cooler of water in our usual spot, but we ended up not really needing it.
After feeling fantastic on our 15 mile run, I wondered how this one would feel. Maybe that 15 miles was a fluke and this one would stink. Not every run can be great, right? But, we lucked out again. It was a very cool 59 degrees when we started and no humidity. There was crazy wind but it didn’t stop us.
Corinna and I had a great run. Before we knew it, we were 2 hours into it and headed back over the Sand Key Bridge. We stopped when we passed back by the main section of Clearwater Beach to take a few photos and then kept heading north. We ran along a different street and oohed and aahed over the amazing homes before turning around and heading back again.
We realized just before mile 15 that we were about 3 minutes faster than when we did 15 miles two weeks ago and that was a huge confidence boost. Despite my lack of math skills, I calculated that we would be under my guesstimation of just 4-ish hours and that was a huge boost to finish on.
We even went a little over the 17 miles, finishing strong at 17.35 miles in 3:37:30. That is a 12:32 average pace… Ah-mazing! We even had negative splits along the way!
I never thought I could run these kinds of distances. Anything over a half marathon seemed almost far-fetched. But now, I know I can do it. I KNOW I CAN. When I’m out there running, I think about what I’m doing and how amazing it is. It makes me feel incredibly strong and healthy. I am not a fast runner and yes, I take walk breaks along the way. But I have come an incredibly long way since I started running.
And now that Week 10 is done, it’s time to move on to Week 11! Mileage for Week 11 will be 5 miles, 8 miles, and 5 miles during the week, and then 18 miles next Sunday. I am doing the Race For The Cure next Saturday so I need to decide how I’m going to work my mileage in with that.
What is your favorite part of a long run? Do you enjoy the scenery along the way or do you just keep plugging along to get the miles in?
