supposed to be a 15K (9.3 mile) "race". this was not a good run for me. in fact, it may have been my worst run ever. I expected to go into this and just knock it out easily with an awesome time. I think I did not respect the distance, and i surely did not respect the heat. i got my ass handed to me, and I'm not afraid to admit it.
since i typically hit the centennial trail for my "race" days, my older son came along to ride a bike with me. so i left the ipod at home so as not to be rude. that was a mistake. i think i dwelled on how shitty the run was, when maybe the music would have distracted me. I came out of the gate too fast, similar to the pace I ran my 5 mile and 10K at, but this was a longer run than those. I didn't carry my water, thinking it was only 9 miles. i have run that distance without water before. but it was mid 70s, full exposure to the sun, at peak sun hours of the day (about noon). I roasted. forgot my sunscreen, and burned for it. I kept stopping in the shade and drinking some of my son's water. every time i stopped, it was an incredible struggle to try and start to run again. just brutal. for the last 4 miles, I would run a mile, then stop, drink, walk for a minute, then start running again. so hard to continue. I hadn't bothered with Glide yet, since it seemed like my mileage was still low (under a half marathon). combination of heat/sweat/shorts gave me some inner thigh chafing about halfway in. just added to my anguish.
i was hating my run, and it shook my faith. I am going into a big week. 36 miles is the most i have ever run in a week (while training for my first marathon). I have 36 this week, and it actually goes up from there. i had some self doubt sunday afternoon. but even for all that stopping and walking, my overall pace was still 8:30 min/mile. I finished in 1:19:06, of which only 1:15:54 was actually moving. when I did run, i ran pretty fast (8:10 min/mile), but i was weak and i lost my mojo and i walked. but i can't let this crush me. compartmentalize it, put it behind me, and move on. i was flipping through some books on Sunday afternoon. I saw this dedication inside a martial arts book, "get knocked down 7 times, get up 8 times" well, i was knocked down on sunday, but i got back up. I'm not going to quit, and I am going to give my long runs and races the respect they deserve. Here's to a long week...
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