A Sunday Run In December

I did it!!! I broke the 2 hour mark and ran 9 miles yesterday.

It actually took 2 hours, 2 minutes, and 46 seconds, but I made it! It seemed a lot longer than it was though…I finished the last few chapters of 2 different audio books and then started cruising through podcasts, but I had plenty of stuff to listen to if I needed to keep going.

Actually, this was the first week where I was not ready to keep going at the end of the run. I brought my water with me with the Heed in it so I had hydration and some calories, but I was pretty tired at the end of the run. Not sore, not exausted, but tired like I didn’t get enough sleep the night before my run. And I did go to sleep late so that may have been it.

I was also warmer than the past few runs. I didn’t have to deal with rain or wind like last week, but it was in the mid 70s and I had my long sleeve shirt on thinking it was gonna be cold. The warmer weather and the lack of sleep could be what contributed to my higher Heart Rate.

One cool thing was that I came across another run-walker around mile 7. This is probably why my last 3 miles were faster than the others. I was kinda ‘keeping’ up with or at least keeping him in sight. It was pretty funny at first since I saw someone walking and ran past him. Then when I started my 30 seconds walk, he ran past me but then started to walk. We kept skipping past each other for about 15 minutes then he kept going and I started slowing down on my runs. He seemed to be at the start of his run while I had already put in quite a bit of run time.

I will definitely agree with that statement from The Run-Walk-Run Method by Jeff Galloway. I’m pretty sure I would not be up to 9 miles without the Run-Walk method and I don’t think I would be very functional the rest of the day after a run. It’s pretty cool that I can do stuff after my run, and the next day, I’m not tip-toeing around with sore muscles. Sure, even with the Run-Walk method, I’m not going too fast, but I am getting miles in and I think I’m training better now that I was years ago. Obviously there are others out in the world like the buddy I was “running” with today who know that the Run-Walk method is a good way to train.