Sunday, August 21, 2011

I feel ready now...

Today was my longest run thus far.
14 miles.



I wanted to be sure to run more than a half marathon distance before the race. That way, I know what to expect. Since I had such a long run ahead of me I decided to run along the river, at Riverside Park. It's a really pretty place to run. Lots of trees, flowers and interesting bridges.


and as you can see the path is really wide as well.


see what i mean, aren't these bridges cool. The nice part about running here is not having to constantly be on the look out for cars. You can just relax and enjoy the scenery.


like this lovely weeping willow set against a calm inlet from the river. You can't see it in this photo but there are a whole bunch of geese just to the left of the trail. When I ran by them, they just stood there and watched me go by, they didn't move at all.


In parts of the park there were several branches down. I knew it had stormed the night before but I didn't realize it stormed that hard. It almost looked like maybe a tornado went through and just caught the tops of the trees.


Ahh...another lovely shot of the river...so peaceful...so serene



and a very cool old train bridge. That's all for the photos. At this point all my picture taking was starting to cut into my time...lol. So I focused on running and enjoying the morning. Around mile 8 I thought, "I could probably do twice this distance." I still felt really good! when mile 12 came around I started getting really tired and I still had 2 miles to go. Mile 13 came and I wanted to quit, my legs and feet were so tired. But, I thought, "this is what I might feel like at the end of the half marathon I need to know that I can power through that feeling." So I pushed it out all 14 miles. That last mile was filled with a lot of run, walk, run, walk, segments. But I got it done. Then went straight home and hopped into an ice bath.
That's it now for distance, now starts the process of tapering back in preparation for the race.

14 Days Left

Today's Half Marathon Training Run Stats
Time: 3:22:15
Distance: 14.06 miles
Pace: 14:23

3 comments:

Marcus said...

Congratulations! That's a great achievement and feels oh so awesome. Enjoy the taper :)

Little Miss Runshine said...

Great job! I love/hate the taper! Enjoy your taper! The race will be so much fun! :)

Sara said...

AWESOME! See, now that I can see you've done it, I know I can get it done! I start my half marathon training on Oct 4. My race is Feb 26. You're an inspiration!!!