Yesterday I rested from blogging but not running.  I spent a lot of time napping but eventually got down to business and decided to go for my long run without my Garmin (luckily, I found it in my purse today, along with a baby sock and an overdue library book).  After hyperventilating for about a half hour and trying to figure out how I would run without it, I came to grips with the situation and mapped out 11.1 miles on mapmyrun. I made a note of the 1 mile marker, and took off, planning to do a 1 mile warmup then 10.1 miles around half marathon pace (7:30) plus 10%.  I brought Riley, the hot dog, along for the adventure.

After about 3 miles, I was feeling pretty good.  I had no idea of my pace because although I knew where the 1 mile point was, once I changed my pace from warmup speed, I did not know how fast or slow I was going.  I decided to pick up the pace a bit.  Around 8 miles, I pretty much knew how far I had to go.  I realized “hey, I am definitely going faster than HMP + 10%.” That was a nice feeling.  I finished strong, pretty much dragging Riley behind me, because she refused to drink any water from the dog bowls scattered throughout Myers Park.  That pup has a lot of stamina, but not much finishing speed when she is completely dehydrated.  We ended up doing the 10.1 miles in just over 82 minutes, for about an 8:07 pace.  I was quite happy with not only my time, but how strong I felt throughout.  I thought I could have run faster, but the goal yesterday was really to run at a comfortable cadence.  My perceived level of exertion was pretty low- so low, I probably could have carried Riley the last two miles. Not really.  I finished out the week with 37 miles, which isn’t bad, considering I basically took off 2 1/2 days last week.

Today was my day of rest for the week.  Total, complete, sit on my butt and do nothing rest.  It’s weird, once you get into a good workout rhythm, it’s almost hard to sit around and not exercise.  Almost.  My stomach did not rest much, because I was still digesting the food I consumed at a SuperBowl party last night.  Pigs in a Blanket are just too cute not to be eaten.

The rest of the week will hopefully go something like this:

Tuesday: 2 miles easy, 4 miles at half marathon pace, 2 miles easy

Wednesday: 6 mile moderate run with 6×1:00 minute uphill (not a hill sprint, but running at a decent incline at 8k pace)

Thursday: ladder run. 1.5 miles build, 1-2-3-4-3-2-1-2-3-2-1 (5k-8k pace), 1.5 miles easy.

Friday: 5 mile moderate run

Saturday: 12 mile run (last 10 minutes hard)

Sunday: 4 mile recovery run with 10×10 sec hill sprints at the end

Total: 42 miles

It looks like we are getting snow on Thursday, which would really suck because I do not want to do my ladder run on the indoor track.  Let’s hope that, as per usual, the weatherman is wrong, because I will have to choose between the geriatrics and the teeny boppers.  Maybe I should conduct a poll as to which group is the lesser of two evils…