Folly or Feasible?

I rocked it. Go, me. I did a few things differently, some based on lessons learned and some on nothing more than superstition.

I resisted temptation to return to the flat neighborhood that has served me so well on past long runs, deciding instead that I really need to be able to walk out the door and go, rather than having to drive somewhere. However, I wanted nothing to do with my usual loop, unwilling, as it were, to return to the scene of the crime. So I explored a new area and enjoyed having something new to look at. Plus one for the run.

I definitely needed a new podcast. Having recently heard of Chubby Jones I decided to give that a try. Mistake! Minus two on the day.

I enjoyed the music, liked her voice, appreciated the encouragement and chat that most others lack. Things were going great the first five minutes. Then the running began, and she started announcing how long I’d been going and how long I had left. Nooooooooooooooooooo. No, no, no, no, no, no, NO! The enjoyment, nay success, of my runs is dependent on having no clue how little time has passed and how very much time remains, be that twenty-four minutes or one. It’s torture to me. On top of which, she’d say things like, “You’ve been going for thirteen minutes, you have seventeen minutes of running left to go!”

Seventeen? Twenty-five minus thirteen is twelve in my book, and surely I’ve been running for thirty-two by now anyway, so just what are you talking about? Oh, the warm-up walk? You’re including that, seriously? That’s just cold.

Knowing how little water I’d been consuming lately I carried a water bottle with me. I did need the water for the hydration, but more importantly I needed the security blanked of knowing I had it, after being so thirsty on my last attempt. Not a fan of carrying it, but well worth it.

The most important difference between this run and the last, though, is that I slowed down. Or, to be more accurate, I ran at my regular pace rather than like a bat out of hell. When I downloaded my stats from the last run I found out that I was going entirely too fast.

(Fast, of course, is a relative term compared to “my normal speed” as opposed to, say, “Kenyans”.)

My normal running pace? Between 14 and 14:30 mm. My pace on Day 2? 12:50-ish for two intervals and 11:45 for my last aborted attempt to finish on schedule. The hell?!?! So I go out when I’m tired, it was hot, I was ill-prepared, I had the wrong podcast and I decide to run and then wonder why I failed? I honestly didn’t think I was going that fast . . .  it certainly didn’t feel that fast at the time. I guess knowing I was squeezing it in and had things to get back to made me feel like I could get it over with, although that’s pointless when the point is to run for time.

At any rate, my pace for the 25 minutes was 14:17 and it was completely doable. At one point another woman passed me and I was thinking, “One day — just not today.” By the time I turned the corner she was a speck in the distance, but I was content to still be plodding along.

Bring on Week 7.