The training continues
Last weekend was my 8 mile run, which was the longest run I’ve been on since the marathon I ran last century. I don’t know why I do it to myself, but I picked a pretty brutal route for those 8 miles. Rather than doing it somewhere that’s relatively flat, I decided to take on the big hills of the surrounding neighborhoods. All-in-all, it went pretty well. 8.06 miles in 01:02 which made for a 07:41 pace, though I was definitely hurting at the end. I’d like to thank myself for not drinking enough water leading up to the run and then choosing the route with the big ass hills for the pain there at the end. It’s all good, I know the temporary pain endured then will pay dividends and make me a better runner in the end.
That having been said, I wasn’t too crazy about the stiff, achy feelings I had all day Sunday and Monday. That was the first time in this training cycle I’ve really felt that way, which quite honestly was making me wonder if I really wanted to pursue this distance running thing beyond the half marathon in November. Yesterday’s five miler, which included those same two big ass hills wasn’t bad at all. Pace was pretty close to the same (7:34 per mile), but I felt good and wasn’t too achy during the evening. That sort of puts me on the fence of either continue to train and run distances like the half marathon or focus more on high intensity interval training for cardio and hitting the weights a little harder. Decisions decisions. Ultimately, I’d like to find a happy medium. I’m not happy that I’ve been slacking on the weight training, but I don’t want to abandon the distance running completely either. There’s a certain allure there for me. Not enough of an allure to take on a full marathon anytime soon, but enough to make me think 13.1 isn’t so bad.