4/10/06: 12--Opps, I mean 11 Miles--Up and About the Park.

I couldn’t get in my long run on Sunday (more on ‘why’ later) so I had to get in 12 miles on my least favorite day of the week for running-Monday! I think I have mentioned the reason why I don’t like doing my long run during the week before-it really wears me out for the rest of the week and the trails are always more crowded during the week! Ahh well--I sure slept great last night. THAT alone made it worth it.

Since the 2.9 mile trail was sooo crowded and I felt no inspiration to do loops like everyone else was doing, I ended up deviating from my plan to do 4 loops and did my favorite run ever to the Polo Grounds….ah it was so nice and…uncrowded. I saw 3 runners the entire route once I got off the loop. Then, after getting that nice icy-cold water and turning back around towards the loop again, I discovered a new trail that Jen had mentioned over the weekend. I HAD TO CHECK IT OUT!

The trail (which is parallel to mile 1-going counterclock-wise) around the loop was just laid down, and what a treat; It was so nice and cushy, I turned around and ran it again. Total amount of others using it: one biker, one dog, two walkers and two runners. Oh man…how great it this! I almost ran it a third time to be obnoxious…but decided to finish off with two loops of the park.

Since I was running more of a ‘lesuirely’ pace before I got to the loop, I decided to push it a little and get my legs moving. My first mile around the loop: 8:35. Not bad, I thought. But I still felt like I wanted to fly…hmmm one more ‘fast mile,’ so low-and-behold when I ran another mile and looked down at my watch and saw 7:38! No way, I thought, no way. Did I cut the mile short? But, there was no way I had.

Of course, I slowed down right away to have enough ‘go’ to run another 3 miles. I did two ‘recovery’ miles (although they were still faster then my first 6 miles to/from the Polo Grounds) at 9:10 each. Then, I knew it was time to finish strong, I still had some energy in the legs (God Bless that Olive Garden Alfredo I had for lunch!) so I put it on the line…7:32. 7:32? 7:32? Lol…okay maybe I cut this mile slightly short, but I can’t lie…I ran the hardest I could in the last 200 meters-just like I would finish a race…and it felt sooo good. And of course I could hardly walk until I stretched for about 30 minutes…

SO I felt very good about this workout, and as I finished my stretching, I looked at my watch and realized I only ran 11 miles instead of 12! Oh well, it’s a recovery week for me anyhow. Plus, I am still sore from Sunday’s biking effort…when I rode my silly-little bike for 40 minutes in the morning…and convinced myself biking isn’t thatttt hard…that is until I tried to sit down later that day! ahhhH! And my calves are still sore too, lol…I need a new bike…but a road bike is going to put me back about $500…arggh! Maybe I can be the one dumby that rides a mountain bike for my first tri…oh well.

Up for Tuesday? Maybe the 2nd Stage of Tour de Bayou (come on, you know I’m stubborn, and it’s ‘only’ 3 miles!)

The STATS:
11 miles

1:38.15 total running
ave. 8:55/mile

mile 1: 9:16
mile 2: 9:26
mile 3: 9:16
mile 4: 9:19
mile 5: 9:25
mile 6: 9:26
mile 7: 8:35
mile 8: 7:38
mile 9: 9:10
mile 10: 9:10
mile 11: 7:32

Heart-rate: 169 ave/194 max
Weather: cool. 60’s low humidity.