Running continues to teach me lessons and make me think. Friday night my training plan called for mile repeats. In the past I've done 400s and 800s but this was my first time taking on mile repeats. I'd be lying if I said I was looking forward to them. I appreciate the fact that Adam keeps pushing me out of my comfort zone. It wasn't an easy run (and isn't supposed to be), but I wrapped it up on point and left with a smile on my face.
I've been running my long runs on Sunday. My next half and my full marathon are Sunday races so this works well. We had 10 miles on the schedule. If you remember, I took some time off to rehab a foot after the ZOOMA half in April and have been slowly coming back since them. So this was my first double digit run since my foot injury.
Its funny how distance is relative. When I started running less than two years ago, a mile was a HUGE milestone. Of course I progressed from there until I was training for the San Antonio full. During that cycle I would've considered 10 miles just a medium run. Now here I am, coming back from time off, and 10 miles is now a "long" run. Its a distance I respect and was a bit nervous about jumping back into double digits.
In fact, before I left I had told Charles, maybe I'll break it up and run 5 now and 5 later in the day. (maybe I shouldn't admit that with my coach reading) Not sure why I was giving myself an 'out' but I didn't need it. At the halfway point I sent Charles a text telling him I was feeling GOOD and I was continuing on.
Energy wise I felt GREAT the entire run. My IT band at the left knee got a bit angry, but I found if I picked up the pace it quieted down a bit, so I varied the pace as I went. I wrapped up the 10 miles in 1:38 with plenty of energy left in my legs. And I was reminded how much I like 10 milers, they are long enough to feel like you've done something, without being long enough to take a lot of time to recover. I'm super amped to be ramping the miles back up, and to be doing it injury free.
I love how a good run can make you feel like you can take on the world.
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We had a pretty low-key fathers day. Charles wanted a relaxing day that would involve pool time and various forms of meat. Yeah, you read that right. I don't eat meat except for fish and I'm the one that cooks so a lot of what I prepare is seafood. I make chicken for him and Dash a couple times a week, but most often our dishes are completely vegetarian. Charles never complains (to me) about this, but every so often he'll put in a request for some MEAT. Yesterday he wanted steak. We went out for that, but I also wanted to fix him something out of the norm for breakfast.
I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've made him bacon, so I decided Fathers Day would be a good time for that treat. (sidenote: I shuddered when I typed "treat" in reference to bacon) I seriously don't like the smell of bacon, handling bacon, or looking at bacon. I sent out this tweet:
"Seriously, I don't understand the appeal of bacon. BUT I love Charles enough to make him some. And I may even do it without gagging. :)"
@RunWithWes replied "lol. bacon=love" and I thought YES! Exactly. I'm willing to handle something I LOATHE to make Charles happy. Sounds like love to me. :) So Charles got his bacon,his cholesterol spike and his steak. Then last night Dash and I followed Heathers recipe for molten lava cakes.
And now I'm giggling that I started out this post talking about the power of running and ended it with bacon and chocolate cake. Balance?