11-mile long run and Week 9 Summary

After being sick most of this week, I am very happy that I actually got out to run yesterday and today. If you're interested, check back to last week's post with my week 8 summary and 10-mile run. And over at Get Fit Slowly, "macdaddy" has completed his first week of half-marathon training. Hats off to him and to keeping up the fun/hard work.

Today, I'll start with my first 11-mile run today and then move to my Week 9 Summary.

First 11-mile Run

I started out a little bit weary of trying to run this run. Since I had been sick most of the week I didn't know how my body would hold up for this. To make matters worse, I fell yesterday so I wasn't sure how my body was going to handle the run today.

Unfortunately, my body started of the day tired. For some reason, my brain decided not to let me get a good night's sleep last night. I was determined though not to let it stop me. I wanted to complete this eleven miles especially with my good run last weekend. The beginning of this run was killer. Usually, I find the first mile quite easy and a warm up. However, today was a different story. It seemed like from the moment I started running that my body wanted to quit on me! At two miles I wanted to quit already and my calves were already tight. One good thing I had going for me was that my wonderful, intelligent, beautiful wife was also walking on the trail on which I was running. This meant I could see her every two laps or so. She definitely provided me with some motivation to continue running.

After 7 miles, I felt like I was dying so I stopped quickly for a drink of water at the water fountain in the park I run in. The water was nice and it took a lot of inner strength to start running again. I was already tired/beat. My calves were hurting and my body seemed to scream at me. I'm sure this had nothing to do with the fact I had been sick all week. At this point though, my wife was reading at a picnic table, so every time I would run by, she would yell, "go Nairb!!!". This provided additional motivation/encouragement for me to finish me eleven miles. They dragged on forever though. My body was really tired and the number of miles left consumed my thoughts. Only 3 more, 2 more, 1 more......

I completed the 11 miles in 1 hour and 36 minutes! This worked out to be about an 8'36"/mile. I am actually pretty proud of this considering how tired I was plus the stoppage for water. I also thought I was running much slower due to tiredness, but I guess my body handles my pace pretty well. I have updated my running log to include this past week. I have also added a new column with how many miles I have gone in a week. I will try to keep it updated with each run so it stays current.

Week 9 Summary

I will summarize again what I did this week versus what my training guidelines (Hal Higdon) dictate. Hal's will be in regular type and mine in italics.

Mon- Stretch and strengthen; 2-mile walk (sick)

Tues- 5 mile run; (sick)

Wed- 9 x 400 5K-pace; (sick)

Thurs- 3 mile run + strength; (sick)

Fri- Rest or easy run; 2-mile walk (sick)

Sat- Rest; 4-mile (crash 'n burn)

Sun- 15K race; 11-mile run


This basically ends me up with 15 miles this week. It is significantly less than I wanted to run, but what I am supposed to do? At least I listened to my body for the most part. I am proud of myself though because I ran 11 miles today! I have never run that long before, so I is proud of my!