Saturday morning ended up being the long run day for the week, nothing incredibly long yet, but was thrilled to get in some longer miles. I've been dying to get out to the ATT so I knew there would be no other place suitable to run long, nothing else would suffice. There were many cars, bikers and runners at the entrance, so I was looking forward to jumping on the trail and enjoying a safe, long run!
I've been so discouraged lately by these blogs, emails, and entries of folks who are running 4, 5, 6 min/mi paces, so much so that I've just been deleting them once I see the "subject" line. I love that others are fast, but hearing over and over how "slow" they feel just puts salt into the wound. I don't know why I let it get to me, maybe because I've been working hard to get faster and it's still not fast, but whatever it is, I've just been discouraged.
To put some of this discouragement behind me, I went on that trail looking for a nice, pleasant run at a comfortable pace (whatever that pace may be). Yes, wore the Garmin but didn't pay much attention to it this time. I enjoyed the peacefulness of nature, the chatter of runners going by, the sounds of animals scurrying, and even the occasional biker that rang his little bell. It was the most beautiful run and I enjoyed every minute of it.
What I thought was going to be a 9 mile run, ended up being an 11 mile run (and only because I made myself stop at 11). Finished the run in 1:29:05, about an 8:08 pace and for a leisurely run that wasn't a race, I felt pretty good about that. My legs felt strong (maybe all this weight lifting is really paying off???) I'm looking forward to training for Boston and I keep those thoughts in the back of my head with each run, in a few weeks the training will begin and I think I'm ready for it. Boston will need to be an 8:02 pace, so if I can keep this up, I'm hopeful that a 3:30 finish will be a feasible goal. One day at a time.
No comments:
Post a Comment