Back in the saddle?

Well, the 1:50 guy eludes me again!  The race results are still not up on the Internet, so I might be updating later.  It was overcast and chilly at the start: perfect running weather.  The race was a loop that started and finished in roughly the same place, and very flat.  I was feeling very good going into it, but probably not as good as my last half in San Diego.  I was expecting to PR, because I've done an 18-mile run since then, so my endurance is even better.  Looking back over last week, though, I did a tempo run, added a mile to one of my daily easy runs, and ran 5 miles yesterday.  Maybe I overdid it a little bit???

I started slower than I wanted to, as usual.  Mile 1 was 8:45 (also, no chip timing, and I crossed the start line about 10 seconds after the gun went off, but the gun time is my official time, so it will have to do).  Next four miles were 8:45, 8:37, 8:38, and 8:38, still too slow.  I picked up the pace earlier in the race than normal, though.  I had about 90 seconds to make up when I hit the halfway point, so I thought I was in good shape. I started picking up the pace a little bit at that point to start making up for some of the lost time and ended up being right on pace, for the most part.  Miles 6 thru 10 were 8:30, 8:24, 8:24, 8:31, and 8:16, with a Gu right after mile 6.  Once I hit mile 11, though, I just couldn't pick it up anymore.  Mile 11 dropped back down to 8:30.  When I saw 1:34 at mile 11, I knew that a PR was out of the question (just couldn't go any faster!), but I was hoping I could do at least as well as last time (1:51:29).  I had another Gu at 11.  Mile 12 was 8:33.  I totally lost it, though, and ran mile 13 at my slowest pace of the race at 8:52.  Final .1 was 36.5 seconds, a 7:11 pace.  Overall pace was 8:34.

This was the first time I have ever run out of gas at the end of a half.  I'm not really sure what went wrong.  I thought I was doing it right by picking up the pace earlier so I wouldn't have to pick it up so much at the end.  Mile 13, and the lack of chip timing, caused my time to be slower than my last half.

It seems that I have hit a plateau in the last month.  If anyone has any advice on how to improve from here, I'd love to hear it!  Maybe it's time to add tempo runs back into my training.....

This race will officially count for this coming week's mileage, but I'll add it onto last week's mileage, which finally puts me back over 40 miles for the week (40.6)!

Well, this is too funny!!!  I will now never know my official time or placing because...the event coordinators messed up.  According to the official results online, I ran a 1:25:40 and got 2nd in my age group (behind someone I ran cross country with in high school)  and 8th overall!!!   That's a 6:30 pace-maybe it can be my long-term goal.  Ha!!  Actually, it looks like I was 14th in my age group and 77/333 for overall females.  They didn't post overall results.  Hey, I'll take a mistake like this!

This was my first run after the race, and I felt surprisingly good.  I was hardly sore at all, although my pace was quite a bit slower.  Part of that, though, was my apprehension with the state of the running path.  It's been raining a lot lately, and there are mud puddles and potholes everywhere now.  So, safe ankles took precedence over my normal pace.  It was COLD out, too!  I only saw three runners, two walkers, and one cyclist.  Usually, I see too many to count.

Total time was 1:09:55, a 9:59 average.  My mile splits were 10:02, 10:14, 10:09, 9:54, 9:56, 9:53, and 9:45.  The first three miles felt SUPER easy, and the last four felt a little closer to normal.  I hope to be back to my normal pace tomorrow or Thursday.

I downloaded several classical choral Christmas albums onto iTunes, and they are beautiful!  Only two weeks to Christmas!!

Well, after a dismal record of only run this week, I did the dreaded 20 miles today.  It was SO COLD.  I think it was close to freezing when I started.  I wore a long-sleeved shirt, short shorts, and a hat.  For the first eight miles or so, I was wishing I had tights and gloves.  At times, I could not feel my legs.  I thought that might be good: if I couldn't feel my legs, I could run forever!

This was officially my longest training run ever!  It was unintentional, though.  I couldn't get up to my desired pace of sub-10:00 for several miles, because of the cold, I think.  Total time was 3:21:54, 9:51 average.  Here are my mile splits: 10:15, 10:16, 9:55, 10:04, 10:10, 10:00, 10:03, 9:57, 10:00, 10:02, 10:06, 9:40, 9:45, 9:29, 9:36, 9:34, 9:28, 9:37, 9:29, 9:41, and 4:51 for the last .5 (9:37 pace).  I felt really good from about mile 10 to 17.  Then I started hurting.

The biggest feat of today's run is that I did it all alone!!  I'm so glad I got this run finished.  Now I'm off to get my hair cut and colored, and then to my firm's Christmas party tonight.  Yippee!