Week 13 Long Run...DONE

I have to keep this short b/c I really need to close my eyes for at least 30 minutes before the big kids walk thru the door and we take off with hours of evening driving. Every Thursday starts early. I am up by 5:20 to get myself ready and then wake the triplets early to get them to school so I can make my 8am PT appointment. It was good to see Shane again. I basically just see him before my long runs now. We discussed my shin and plantar fasciitis. He thinks the shin is more related to the foot and nothing serious. That's what I had started to think and went back and forth on cancelling my appointment with sports med tomorrow, but I still want the script for a steroid dose pack so will keep it. I also need some reassurance that I am in fact crazy from my doctor on something else. Will get to that later. In therapy, Shane stretched my hip and reassured me that my hip seems to be holding up great this go round. Then we did tools to my leg and foot. The foot part did not hurt, but I hate tooling of the lower leg. That ranks right up there with laser hair removal of the lower leg. Still I got thru the run and if it might help, I will endure!! At least Shane knows how to distract me with conversation while he is using the torture tools. We laughed hard reliving the awesome (NOT) hotel we stayed at for our Vegas running trip. His room had leaky loud toilet that he tried fixing multiple times and backed up shower water. Keith never gets to pick the hotel for any group running trip again!!

After therapy I headed up to meet Jaime on the Monon! Her plan was to run 11 or 12 miles. I of course was doing 19. The weather was great for running. Not too cold, but cold enough I used my arm covers for awhile. No significant wind and yet somehow parts still seemed windy, and no matter what direction we were running it seemed to be head on. It was weird. Again it was not more than 4mph wind, so I can't complain. I was very nervous for this run. After last week, I wasn't sure I would even be able to do it. I was worried Jaime would try and kill me at the start. The first 4 miles to me felt very long. I just kept thinking I had a lot to go. After that, I did finally start to warm up and things got a little better. The goal was to run out 6 miles and back 6 miles. We were close. At 5.73 miles we would have had to cross a major intersection and Jaime just wanted to turn around. Speed wise we were not doing bad at the start but slower than our last long run. On the way back we slowed down even more. Just wasn't a fast running day for either of us. She was doing fine cardio wise but kept saying her legs felt like lead and she couldn't push thru it. I thought my legs were holding up better than expected (at that point) but cardio wise I was tired despite the slow pace. When we got back to where we started, we had done 11.5 miles. I had some garmin issues somewhere between mile 5 and 6 and it simply wasn't working for about .75 miles. That annoys me but Jaime's garmin was still working and our average pace was not that far off (my just figured for less mileage than we really did but average pace still figures out okay). So our average pace for the first 11.5 miles was 8:25 (Jaime's garmin said 8:23 but I go with mine).

I spent my usual 5 minutes or more (with the garmin stopped) telling Jaime bye, refilling my drinks, going to the bathroom. I am really going to miss this long mid run break that will NOT be happening during the race. Sadly I really look forward to it. Finally she left, and I was ready to go back out. I turned on the music and off I went. Those 7.5 miles were tough. It was all I could do to get thru them. Lots of mental games and breaking down the distance in a million ways. On my 3.75 miles back (toward my start and car) I really started to feel my feet. While I thought it was a tear of some sort on the bottom of my right foot I realized once getting home I just have another big blister but this one is on the bottom of my foot right where my big toe attaches to the rest of the foot. Crappy location b/c you feel it with every step. Ouch!! My last 3 miles I got to feel Jaime's pain. My legs at that point felt like lead and were not moving that fast. Normally I like to have a little kick at the end. There was nothing today!! The average pace for that 7.5 miles was 8:06. Trust me it took everything I had in me to get that. At the end I felt sick. The 45 minute drive home was rough.

So here is the specific breakdown (keeping in mind that somewhere I lost .75 miles)
Mile 1: 8:04 (way way way too fast for my liking)
Mile 2: 8:23
Mile 3 8:24
Mile 4 8:16
Mile 5 8:14 (I think this is where I started to feel better)
Mile 6 8:19
Mile 7 8:30 (this is where Jaime's legs were feeling like lead and cardio wise I was more than happy to slow down)
Mile 8 8:42
Mile 9 8:44 (I was really hoping at this point we did not hit the 9 minute mark)
Mile 10 8:32
Mile 11 (part of it) 8:25
Again there is a missing 0.75 miles in there (but didn't matter b/c according to Jaime's gamin it didn't change the average)

My 5 minute break.....ahhhhhh!!!
Mile 12: 7:44 (my first mile back out is always fast....this was a little too fast and I paid for it the rest of the run)
Mile 13 8:04
Mile 14 8:13
Mile 15 8:04
Mile 16 8:10
Mile 17 8:13
Mile 18 8:10
Mile 19 8:08 (here is where I started with chest pain that I am sure is nothing but just need my sports doc to remind me that I am crazy and fine). Seriously though I was having chest pain and back pain between my shoulder blades for a good 10-15 minutes after my run. I had just run 19 miles. I am sure my chest, back and every other part of me is supposed to hurt!

So if you figure all that up I think my overall average pace was 8:16!  NO chance I could keep that up and I will be going with a MUCH slower pace group on race day. I think I will try and stay with the 3:55 pace group and try and enjoy the run instead of kill myself on the run!

Happy training and quick healing for all those who need it!!