It took my pieces and parts awhile to recover from the
half marathon I ran on Sunday so Monday and Tuesday were total rest days which
included some gentle stretching, a lot of ice on my right knee (as well as some
on the left so it didn’t feel left out and start acting up), tons and tons of
water along with copious amounts of Advil (you should see the size of
the bottle I just got… it’s giant!). On Wednesday I did a couple miles of
walking followed by some yoga for runners (the people on the DVD still freak me
out with their blank stares and abnormally bendy parts) and a long session with
my beloved foam roller and magic muscle stick thingy… both of which worked
painful miracles on my tight ITB (Iliotibial Band – it’s a band of thick fibrous
tissue that starts at the hip and runs along the outer thigh and attaches on
the outside edge of the shin bone just below the knee joint and it can get
super tight and make pretty much everything hurt). I’m fairly certain that I
know more about anatomy now than I ever have before despite watching that somewhat creepy guy in the bodysuit as a kid (remember that guy? I think it was a PBS show... ahh, yes... Google to the rescue once again... Slim Goodbody!)
By yesterday evening I was getting pretty cranky after not
being able to run for a few days (not that long ago I would have said the exact
opposite and would have dreaded going to run rather than being bummed about it... kind of a cool transformation). So this morning I laced up (same shoes, same issues), grabbed my new totally badass Nike+
Sportwatch w/GPS (a congratulations on the half marathon prize from my sweetie!)
and went to Crissy Field to see what my body would let me do. Apparently my parts were grateful for the
days of rest because everything pitched in and did their part to keep me
upright and running comfortably (maybe comfortably is too strong of a word…
perhaps that should be replaced with “relatively comfortable”) for a great 10
mile run!
My total fascination with the new watch thingy distracted me
for most of the run… I had no idea my pacing was so inconsistent or that I was
miscalculating my regular loop by almost .25 miles (thankfully I was running
further than I thought vs. shorter!). It was also easy to get caught up in
looking around at what an amazing day it was as well as all of the people the
warm sunshine brought out so it really wasn’t until about mile 9 that I started
to think about the end of the run rather than just enjoying what was going on
around me (and what my fancy watch was telling me about my run… how far,
pacing, time, etc… so much fun!). The watch also introduced a new sense of freedom because instead of having to stick to a predetermined route, I'm now able to branch out while still keeping tabs on my mileage - total bonus! And now that I will have all the fun details of each run, I'm going to include them in my posts... while I do hope you will find them interesting, quite frankly it's more for me than for you as I'm a sucker for accountability and need all the help I can to make sure I'm getting in the necessary miles at this stage in the game!
10 miles, 1hr 43 min 57 sec, avg pace 10.22 (I couldn’t
figure out how to pause it when I stopped for a quick restroom break… got it
figured out now so average pace should be more accurate next time!)
Cheers,
SF runner in training
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