I don't know if I got caught up in the excitement of the race, if my music was faster paced then I usually run with or it was just because I was feeling good...
Mile one and I was feeling good...I wasn't feeling sluggish and my legs were cooperating...which usually doesn't happen during the first mile for me...but I finished mile one with an 11:08.
Miles two through five were much the same...I felt great...I knew my pace was much faster than I was used to running...my training runs, only a 7 (avg pace 11:37) and a 8 miler (avg pace 11:24)...at mile 5 I was at 55:05...an avg pace of 11:01...I've done this enough to know what was coming next...
And sure enough...it came at mile 6...the wall...I ran into head on...I seen it coming but it was too late...it took me 12:14 to complete that mile...I recovered a little to pull off a 12 minutes for mile 7...but that was the last mile I respectively pulled off...rest of them...I completed short of crawling...All of mile 8 I held my left side since I had a horrible pain, thankfully it went away...
I had pretty much called it quits...I had given up running...walking had become a chore all by itself...I came around the corner about a quarter mile from the finish line and the road was lined with all these National Guardsmen clapping and yelling "Finish Strong" and I just had the dig in and find whatever I had left...that quarter mile might as well been a mile since I had to run uphill and my calves started burning...it felt like the muscles were tearing...each stride I thought I was to trip over my own feet...everything seemed to move in slow motion...every ounce of me wanted to quit...but once I got to the top of the hill...it was all downhill from there...even managed to squeeze out an 8:27 pace to finish it out...helping me to squeak in just under 2 hours with a 1:59:17...
I was initially very unhappy with this...but once the initial disappointment subsided I knew that a 11 min pace wasn't really realistic...I know it can take months of training to shave 30 seconds off an average mile pace for a long run...I hadn't ran in two weeks since my 8 mile run and until Tuesday...I wasn't even sure I was going to be well enough to run...then I came across a 10 mile run from last December...the last time I ran 10 miles and I had been running regularly and was running over 100 miles a month...and my avg pace was 12:16...so as I look at the big picture...I pulled it off...it wasn't a stellar performance by no means but I finished...and the last thing I told my boyfriend before heading to the starting line...I will be happy with anything less than two hours...
Tomorrow starts my half training...I have 14 weeks to train...I decided to go from running a 5K to running 10 miles in 6 weeks and lost the last two weeks of training due to being sick...but I have 14 weeks to get ready for my half...I know that I can do 10...I could have probably finished with a better time had I paced myself better and slowed down at mile two when I realized I was going too fast...I know what I did wrong...now I have time to learn from my mistakes and get it right for my half...and if I am lucky and training and I play nicely...maybe...just maybe an 11 min/mi pace could possibly be in my future.
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