Day 34, 331 To Go

February 3, 2013

Ah, glorious Sunday!  So many reasons that today is a good day.  First, I'm surrounded by friends & family...uh, I meant to say, first, it is long run day.  Second, it is the Superbowl, and third, I'm surrounded  (literally, on ALL sides) by friends and family (I think they all want to move in...help!!)

Seriously, Sunday was a good day.  I might not have been able to sleep in, but with family visiting, me and Honey have help with the little monsters.  They have been a little whiny because they are a bit sick.  Speaking of sick, Honey caught the 24 hour flu that our four year old Derek had and presumably what the babies have.  She wasn't up to running today.  I think I could have pushed her into it, but it is never a good idea to run with a fever or a cold in your chest.  Most likely, you'll just exacerbate your symptoms.  Of course, I may end up with this cold and I will have to ignore my own advice!

I went out for my run at around 2:00 in the afternoon.  The weather was perfect for a long run.  I am guessing it was around 65 degrees.  You may remember from my post yesterday that I was supposed to do some cross training today.  However, at 7:30 when we were up and ready to go, it was about 40 degrees.  I don't know about you, but I'm not a penguin, so we had already decided not to swim.  And being that I now live in Florida and the whole point was to escape the cold, we decided to not freeze our asses off and go for a bike ride either!

We postponed our ride until afternoon, but because Honey was ill, I stayed home to watch the kiddies while our guests went out and contributed to child slave labor in China by going on a Wal Mart shopping spree.  When they got back, I just went for my long run.  The past few weeks I have been running for 15 minutes with Honey and then I would run the rest on my own before or after.  Today, I ran the full amount all at once.  It felt like a big jump in time. 

For those of you with time constraints on your training, you can split up your runs into multiple small runs.  Usually two is a good amount.  So, for instance, if you needed to do a 2 hour run, you could run an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening.  The training affect is similar.  You will still be working on your endurance and you will still be getting your miles in.  The biggest negative I have found is that when you do this, you don't get the full affect of the pain you can expect to experience in a longer race or run.  This is important because you need to have this perspective or you may go out too fast or you may just not be prepared.  However, sometimes it is necessary to get your full mileage in, so it is a reasonable alternative.

Here are my numbers:

Time: 55:00

Distance: 5.70 miles

Pace: 9:39/m

Max Pace: 6:08/m

Calories: 739

Avg HR: 149

Max HR: 171

I was satisfied with my pace, but it is misleading in a way.  First, I stopped at about 35 minutes at 7/11 to refill my Gatorade.  Thank Heaven for Seven Eleven, as the old jingle used to go.  It is placed at the perfect spot for many of my long runs.  After I refilled, I did a fast 5 minutes to stretch my legs out.  As they say, to be fast you have to run fast in training.  I didn't want to do too much but I did feel the need for speed.

I ran at about a 7:15 clip and it got my heart rate up to the max you see above.  So this five minutes upped my average pace a bit.  On the other side of the coin, since I was determined to stay in my aerobic zone for the entire run (save the pick up, of course) I had to really slow down from about 25 - 30 minutes in.  I was feeling fine, but my heart had other ideas.  It just kept on beating faster, so I was down to about 11:00 min miles for a bit to get it below 151 which is where my aerobic zone ends. 

All in all, it was a fairly difficult run and I am pretty sore.  I even have a nice blister on one of my toes...badges of honor for us runners.  At least with my Vibram running shoes, I don't lose any toenails anymore!

I'm off to stuff my face with hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, dip, beans, sausage & peppers, pasta salad, soda, beer, football and wishfully thinking, Beyonce!  She may dance like a chicken, but the girl is definitely Bootylicious!

I'm going to get Honey smacked for that one...

Run for life!!