Unfortunately I had to run yesterday before the cold front came through, so it was muggy and warm. It did rain a bit during the run which was cooling, but not enough.
I did 7 miles in 1:20:25, or 11:29/mile, with an average heart rate of 183. However, this 7-miler could easily be divided into two very different halves. The first was great! As I pulled into the parking lot next to the park where the trails begin, I saw Stephanie running past. (She’s also training for the half.) I waved her over, quickly got set to go, and we ended up running my first half hour (and her last half hour) together. That half hour, and the 10 minutes after she pulled off to go home, were great — I felt pretty good. But around 40 minutes, something just died. I took a ton of short walking breaks in the second 40 minutes of my run, probably 5-6 minutes cumulative time. While the first 40 minutes were probably somewhere around a solid 11:00 pace, the last 40 had to have been more like 12:00/mile.
I can’t even explain it. I just felt dead. Maybe it’s from the intervals I did on Wednesday or the 5K of Saturday.
Regardless, I’m happy that I at least covered the distance. My training schedule said 6 miles, but I pushed through to 7 since I’ve been feeling better this week. I was secretly hoping that my leg issues would go away as they have before, and miraculously, they have. And so suddenly. Last Sunday’s long run was filled with pain, but I haven’t experienced it since. It’s so frustrating, because now I feel like it couldn’t have been all that bad if it disappeared so quickly! But it was. Bad.
