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| My pre 18K meal. Coffee with cream, 2 hard boiled eggs, an apple and 2 TBSP of natural peanut butter. |
It was cold this morning. About -14C (6.8F) when I headed out to the Running Room for my run. I would have liked nothing better that to stay in my warm house drinking coffee, but if I had done that, I would have felt like complete crap all day. So I dressed in my running shorts, with my running pants over them, a technical t-shirt, long sleeved technical shirt, and my RR jacket. I had on gloves and mittens, a head band and a hat. And my technical ski socks from Walmart! My feet were toasty warm all run long:)
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| Never had either of these flavors. I'm a boring vanilla girl... |
As I headed out, I made sure I had some Gu with me. Gu is an energy gel that is used by athletes to replenish lost nutrients during strenuous activity. Since my run was going to take me over two hours to complete, it was important that I had a little something something to get me through my run without feeling as though I was gonna pass out. I did eat a breakfast and I ate really well the day before, so I wasn't too worried that I was gonna be undernourished or anything. I also had two flasks of water, that ultimately ended up freezing. But I was able to get some of it down with the Gu.
Four of us started out running together. At about the 6K mark, two of my group went off on their own, and although I ran their pace, I stayed behind with a young girl because I didn't want her to run the route alone. She was visiting from Toronto and came out for run club, so she wasn't familiar with the route we were running. Plus the running instructor in me just couldn't leave her on her own. So I slowed my pace down and stayed with her.
All in all we ran 15K together before she had to stop because her stomach was bothering her (too much Gu if you ask me) and said she was going to walk back into the Running Room. So I ran the last 3K by myself. I turned my phone off at 15K because my battery was dying and I didn't want to lose my run, but I ran a 7:15 pace with my young friend, then ran my normal pace for the last 3K. I'm happy with that. Sunday runs are our Long Slow Distance (LSD) runs. All in all an enjoyable experience that could have been more so if I dropped LSD just prior to the run. May have been more enjoyable, or just completely psychedelic Who knows where I would have ended up. Probably a good thing I didn't. I may not be writing this right now! And can you even get LSD these days?
Anywho, although my left hamstring was still a bit achy, it definitely felt better overall. And for the first time EVER, I had no cramping in my toes! Very bizarre indeed because I kept waiting for the pain to come and it never did. My knee problem from last week was also not an issue. The knee pain went away the same day it came. I also ran up the giant hill on Spring Gardens Road in Burlington again. When I'm running it, It feels like it's never going to end. I think that this is the 3rd time I've run it. It gets easier every time. Not sure how easy it will be during the Around the Bay when I've run all the other hills prior to the giant last one! So all in all I'm happy with my run this morning.
Wednesday is the beginning of our speed work. I'm not exactly sure what it is except that we do a warm up run, then we run around a 400 meter track as fast as we can twice, then around once slowly before running twice again as fast as we can. Or something like that. I'll let you know on Thursday how that goes. I ran 50K (31 miles) this week. I have never run that far in a week before. I also ran over 170K (106 miles) in the month of January. Not too shabby considering the weather conditions. I'm sticking to the promises I made to myself. I'm not missing runs, no matter what the circumstance (illness and family emergencies are the only exceptions). We're already into February and the days are getting longer. I look forward to running in daylight everyday very soon. That will make me an even happier runner!
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| That is a genuine smile. I just finished the 18K:) |