Long Run Genesis (R)

One Day at a Time

Perfect running weather. I decided to go for the 6 miles. Even this morning I was questioning whether I should just run the 5 miles for the pretraining plan. But I went ahead and ran the full 6 miles, no problem. Minor discomfort in my right ankle, hope it’s nothing. I will rest the next 48 hrs as the plan calls for and I should be OK.

This is my longest run probably since last fall sometime. Sundays will be my long run day, and today was the start of long run procurement . . . a genesis, if you will.  The long runs will increase by a mile a week with a rest week thrown in there every 3 – 4 weeks. 

Still not sure how I’m going to mesh the set-in-stone training schedule with my ever random work schedule from week to week. Do the best I can, and hope I don’t drive myself crazy. For every crunch period there is an equal and opposite period of down time. I have learned this. Some days I will be working 9 hrs, going to a meeting AND doing a long run, all in one day. Other days I will be doing absolutely nothing, like tomorrow. It comes and goes. I just have to stick with it no matter what. I suppose there ARE legitimate excuses though, such as injury or sickness.

Week 1 of 12 week 1/2 Marathon training DONE.

No music for this run.  Do you think I was bored with no music, for nearly an hour run?  Nope.  I just enjoy the run.  Didn’t have the pain of fiddling with that player.

-AR

PS: The beauty of yesterday’s short run was that it bridged the gap (so I didn’t have to take 2 days off in a row) between earlier in the week when I knocked out a majority of my weekly mileage, and today, the long run. Yet it was short enough I didn’t tire myself out yesterday and was ABLE to do a long run today. But if I’m working my own schedule I tend not to have the restraint. I would have run 4 – 5 miles yesterday at full pace if I had not had this training schedule to tell me to run 3 miles. That would have made getting 6 miles a little harder today, if not impossible. But as it turned out, I had no real problems, other than minor psychology . . . I do best when I trick myself into thinking I’m only going to do a shorter distance and then late in the run decide I’m going to put in that extra mile, two miles, three miles, etc. But tell me X miles before a run and I freak out. During this run I was reserving the right (up until about mile 4) to only run 5 miles, since that’s the pretraining plan, and I never really did the pretraining anyway.

See Route

6.07 miles (9.77 km) through Millbrook, Amelia Landing, and Grenelefe. Start time approximately 3:00 PM EST on 02/06/2011. Total run time 56:31. Pace 9:18. Weather Conditions: Clear, 57F/14C, Dew Point 30F, Humidity 36%, Winds WSW 8mph, 30.00inHg/1015.9mbar and steady.