Survived 14 miles...barely

We went to REI yesterday and I got this handheld.

It's a little too bright for my liking, but it was between this and a Nathan hand-held, and the hand grip on the Amphipod was tons more comfortable.

So I thought I was going to kick ass on my long run today since I now had some liquid on me, unlike last week's long run. I also packed a couple of fun-sized Snickers in the handheld for fuel. Oh, and I ate a regular sized Snickers pre-run. Sooooooo much tastier than a Clif bar. I also dropped a Nuun tablet (fruit punch flavor) in my water.

Well, the run sucked.

There were many a walking breaks. I don't remember at which mile they started, but it was way before Mile 9, unlike last week, maybe Mile 6. Sigh.

I ran out of water at the halfway point. And I was so thirsty and so dying that this time I actually went inside the Community Center at the start of Mile 10 to refill my bottle. I didn't care that the receptionist looked at my sweat-drenched self all weird. Their cold water from the water fountain was heaven!

I actually paused my garmin before I went in the Community Center, which is why Mile 10 probably doesn't read 15 minutes. Then I trudged the rest of the way back home.

I saw my neighbor walking her dog at the bottom of my last hill. I said hello to her and then proceeded to run up the hill. Thank goodness for her, because I think I didn't want to lose face by her seeing me crawling up that thing, hence the decent (for me) last mile at 12:12.

I'd like to run the marathon at an 11:30-12:00/mile pace. I'm wondering if my Insanity work-outs are interfering with my running times. I think they did during my February half earlier this year. I was doing Insanity in conjunction with my half training and my half turned out to be slower than I had hoped. I stopped doing Insanity and my half in June was much better. I started Insanity again this week. Maybe I'll just try and cut back.

Anyway, that was my long run today. 16 miles next week. Oy!

How the f@#! am I gonna run 26.2 miles?!

Yesterday morning I headed out to do my long run. My schedule called for 10 miles, but I figured I would do 12. My gramin died when I went to turn it on. I added a few tangents to my regular 10 mile route, so I thought I had a rough idea of which mile I was on. I mapped it last night, and I actually did 12.5 miles. In a slow, agonizing 2:31.

Miles 1-4: I felt good, strong, invincible.

Miles 4-7: Felt okay, neither good nor bad.

Miles 8-9: Hard. Felt like stopping, but pushed myself to continue to run.

Miles 10-12.5: Wheels feel off. Walked on and off.

My mantra throughout this run was, "You don't have to go fast. You just gotta go forward." That helped me get through some rough spots.

I think I need to carry water with me. I was soooooo thirsty. I thought about stopping inside the comminity center midway in my run because I knew they had water fountains inside. But I didn't know if they were open already. And I would've been too embarrassed anyway to go inside anyway.

I had a couple of fig newtons during the run. Don't know if they gave me more energy. But I do know they made me super thirsty.

I was so tired during the last few miles of this run. How am I supposed to run more than double this?! What the fuck!

Upping the mileage

I hopped on the scale this morning. 131.2. And morning is when I'm at my lightest. Sigh. Instead of getting better about what I'm eating, I had deep fried sweet potato fries, rice, beans, tamales, orange soda, cookies, frosted flakes, etc. Nice, huh?

Several months ago I was able to eat like a horse and still lose weight. So what's up with now? Well, I still eat like a horse. I'm just not exercising as much.

Now this is where it (i.e. me) gets ridiculous. This is roughly my training schedule:

Monday - 45 minutes weights, easy run (4-6 miles)
Tuesday - 45 minute weights, cross-train (usually pilates)
Wednesday - hard run (3-4 miles speedwork)
Thursday - 45 minutes weights, easy run (4-6 miles)
Friday - cross-train (usually pilates)
Saturday - long run
Sunday - rest

Plenty of exercise, right? Well, in order for me to lose weight I either need to watch my food intake or exercise more. And I know I can't stop eating sweets. So it looks like I need to tack on more exercise.

I was flipping through an old Runner's World magazine earlier today and glanced over a marathon training plan for a newbie marathoner. The weekly mileages from the get go were a lot more than the weekly mileages in my plan. Not couning cut-back weeks, my mileages have been in the 20-25 range, and I'm already in Week 8 of my training. The Runner's World plan starts off the first week of training at 25 miles.

Looks like I might need to revise my training.

Who am I?

I had a decent 6 mile run this morning. However, on the last huge hill at the end of my run I felt myself starting to fade.

When my kids don't listen to me or tell me no, I ask them, "Who am I?" They know to answer "Mama," which means they have to do as I say.

On the hill I thought of all the training I've done, all my strength-training, all my runs. Then in my head I said to myself, "Who are you?" And I answered, "I am a bad-ass mutha-fucka! I got this!" And repeat.

I made it up that hill with energy left to sprint all the way to my house.

Who am I?

Hehe.