Who doesn't love a spontaneous half marathon? ...almost. That was the goal.
Ashley asked me yesterday at work (my first day) if I wanted to run a half marathon this morning with her and 2 other friends. I said sure! Very early morning but that worked in my favor because I had work in the later morning (my current job- finishing out the two weeks notice). I was nervous because of having hardly run for the last month. But I decided to go for it anyways.
It was so nice to run with people. All of us were ex- college runners. Repping SUU and Utah State.
To begin with we had a mutual agreement to go 9:00 pace. We were all nervous about it. That's what we did- we averaged 8:57.
I felt a lot better than I expected, until the end. About 5 miles in my gut started feeling a little upset, so I was worried about how it would feel later in the run, but it was okay. A bathroom break at mile 7 and I was good. Around mile 9 I started to develop a blister on my right foot middle toe. Mile 10 and it was incredibly painful, probably popped around mile 11 because shortly after the pain subsided a little. Still hurt, but dwarfed by newly developed hip pain, probably from adjusting my stride due to the pain in my toe. 11.5 miles and I was hurting, bad. I didn't know if I could finish another 1.6 miles, that's how bad it was. 12 miles and we were almost there, I started falling behind the group because at that point I was just trying not to stop. They slowed down for me. We hit the parking lot (our pickup spot) at about 12.25 miles. I was fighting so hard to keep going. I wanted to just grit it out and finish. But at 12.5 my hip pain was just too much and I called it quits.
I was very disappointed that I didn't finish. But I got close. Even though listening to my body wasn't on my mind at the time, I'm also glad I didn't finish. Another .6 may have only added to the injury. I probably should've stopped sooner, but there was pressure to keep up because I would have to travel the distance anyway- walk or run- since we were getting picked up. Luckily the lot came sooner than 13.1. And you know, for not running much in the last month, I'm happy with it. I know I'm capable of a lot better as evidenced by my longer runs/ half marathon splits a while back. But for it to be a spontaneous thing and being very ill prepared for it, I'd say it was a success.
Ashley set my hips at the end cause she knows how to, it gave a big pop. They were off by a lot. Blister was pretty knarly, I'm surprised it doesn't hurt more.
It probably wasn't wise to hop into this. I hope my hip will be okay. Even so, it was fun until the last 3 miles. I'm still glad I went. I'm hoping to start having more consistency with running here soon.
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