After rebounding from the food poisoning, I was able to get back on the lakefront and get my weekday training in. My first day back out after a rather difficult last 2 weeks - Tuesday at 5 a.m. - and the first boat I see in the harbor: Endurance. What a perfect way to get back on track. It's all about building endurance at this point in the schedule. The running up to this point has almost been a warm up. Now the real fun begins - 13 miles, 15, 16, 18 and so on. The weekday runs are even getting longer, which means I'll have to set my alarm even earlier than 4:30 a.m. I'm going to have to start going to bed at like 7 p.m. in order to get up any earlier!
So, three good runs during the week and I was ready for the half on Saturday. But first, a quick trip to my favorite running store for more chocolate flavored goo - to ingest an hour into my run to keep from passing out and dying. I also picked up more of the special laundry detergent - engineered by NASA - to get sweat out of my clothes post run. I've gotta keep my skirts looking sharp!
My sister Jenny drove in from the suburbs Saturday morning to join the running group for the 13-miler. We started out okay but she had to take a bathroom break - the first of many to come that day - so we got separated for a few miles but met up again at the halfway point. I was feeling pretty good but nervous about the second half - the point where I fell apart in the 12 miles the week before. Because I had waited for Jenny at the water stop, we got separated from the pace group and we ran the second half by ourselves. After her 50th bathroom break we cruised in the last 3 miles and finished in 2 hours, 22 minutes. A little slower than I had hoped, but not too bad considering I'm probably still not 100% after the stomach rot. My kneecaps were once again shot after about mile 8 but I was able to run through it. The rest of the day Jenny and I hobbled and moaned and groaned like two old ladies. I can't believe we ran 13 miles. That's pretty amazing to me. I wish Jenny and I had aimed to run a half-marathon this year and we'd be done but like she said - where's the challenge in that?? We just did that after only 8 weeks of training. So, it's onward and upward. The miles really start climbing after this. If I make it through the next 8 weeks, I will get Endurance tattooed on my kneecaps. Kind of like the prison tats across the knuckles.
A recap of Week 8:
- Monday - rest day (I can't even impart upon you how much I love Mondays!)
- Tuesday - 3 miles (This short distance now seems like going to the mailbox and back)
- Wednesday - 5 miles (For the first time I had to use the bathroom en route and of course found not one bathroom open at 5 in the morning. Had to cut this one a little short so I could get home and take care of business.)
- Thursday - 3 miles (Again, such a short distance now it's almost not worth suiting up for)
- Friday - rest (I'm almost getting tired of carbs after loading up every Friday the past 2 months)
- Saturday - 13 miles (After the run I took my socks off to discover blisters the size of small planets on my feet. The anti-blister socks are going back to my favorite running store. The Toothpick steered me wrong on those!)
- Sunday - cross training (Back on the bike for 8 miles/45 minutes. It helped stretch out my legs and loosen up)
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