Ok, so I know that probably reads like I'm not into the holidays, which is not true, I'm a fan of Thanksgiving and Christmas, as much as the next person, even if this year is so un-Christmasy we might as well be on the West Coast. No joke, tomorrow it's going to be almost 70. I don't know how people on the West Coast live like this, to be honest. I hate to say it after the winter we had last year, but I miss the snow. At least a little flurry. Heck, I'd even take just a cold day. But you know what? Today I ran outside in a tank top. Yes, in Massachusetts in December, I'm out burning up the miles in a flimsy lightening dry tank. Sure, this is great running weather, but it's not great Christmas weather. In an ideal world, it gets cold and snows for Christmas and then in January everything goes back to being 50 degrees. Although not having weather like this until well after winter, my mind keeps thinking about all the awesome spring activities and I have to remind myself that we're still far away from that end. School's not even close to being over and there's a lot more winter left before we make it to spring again.
Enough about all this though, back to the running. I finally managed to stop putting off my 20 miles and get it done today. Much like the Taco Bell Crunch Wrap Supreme, I am good to go now. I figured that with the 15 on Saturday and the 20 today, I'm all set for Louisiana. Today's run was a good one, finished in 3:02, not bad considering I joined up with Cynthia and Madilyn for some middle miles, which meant slowing down for the stroller. (Secretly I'm ok with that and might actually look forward to the slow down!) Even then, it wasn't much a slow down, maybe a minute on per mile, if that. Include the hills in that and Cynthia gets way more credit than I do, because I doubt I could make it 3 with a stroller, let alone 6, at any pace! Unfortunately my headphones died at mile 19, which is always a bummer, but usually the last mile is the easiest one to power through anyways, because you know at the end of that mile, you're actually done. It does raise the point again of finding good wireless headphones that can actually hold a charge. I didn't even use the headphones for the entire run, I'd say maybe for 2 hours total. Sure, I used them on Saturday and didn't recharge, but I think on Saturday I used them for just over an hour, so if that's an indicator of battery life, they still wouldn't make it through the rest of the marathon with me. Hopefully I'll be so speedy on this nice flat course that I'll outrun my headphones charge. Ok, that's highly unlikely, but I think this is definitely the course to hit the 4 hour mark. I know you're not supposed to run your first half super fast, but if I can get the first half done in 1:50, that leaves just about 2 hours for the second, which I know is do-able. If I don't get the first half done in 1:50, I can still break the 4 hour mark, but I'd really have to hold a steady pace the entire run, which may be do-able, but I don't know, because I have yet to run at a solidly consistent pace.
While we're on the subject, I know that the experts say to run your training runs around a minute slower than your expected pace, but I just can't figure out how to do that. When I go out running, I just go. For example, my first 9 miles today were around the 8:30 mark. Which is definitely not a minute slower than my expected pace. I'd say that's pretty spot on to my expected pace. But they weren't consistent 8:30s, they went all over the place from 8:03s all the way to 8:53s. Sure, I had to stop to cross some roads and chug up some hills, but still, there's no consistency there. Then my last five were back in the 9:00s, 9:03, 9:07, etc. How does one go out and run slower than their marathon pace and still expect to be faster on the day of the race anyways? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I know that races are different, there's crowds and cheering, etc, but I don't think I could do all of my training runs at a 9:30 - 10:30 pace and still expect to come out blazing in January. Maybe it's just me though.
Sadly, I have no pictures for you today. I do have this little life lesson that you can live by. Sure, it says board games, but replace that with basically anything you're doing in life, and the results will be the same. Pretend for the sake of this post that it says running instead of board games, and you'll really understand me. And with that, Merry Christmas!
I'll try to get in one more before the end of the year, but in case I don't, Happy New Year!
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