I ran 7.5 miles this morning. I finished the run in 90 minutes. That’s 12 minute miles all the way through. I probably started slow, I felt like a few of the miles were faster than 12 minutes, and the last 1 mile was definitely a bit more brisk.
This is the run route:
The run felt good. There were numerous reasons that contributed to today’s good run. First and foremost, I got about 7 hours of sleep last night and this helped (since my average is about 5.5 hours). I had a protein drink and some coffee in the morning. This was just the right balance of calories and stimulant to get me moving.
I started my run at about 10am so I had about 2.5 hours from the time I woke up to the time I started running to get warmed up. I did a lot of slow stretching all morning. My joints and muscle felt good as I started the run.
It was about 60 degrees out and I was wearing running pants and a hooded sweat shirt on top of my tech-shirt. The attire was just right for the weather conditions.
I ran a route on the bike path at the forest preserve. I ran 3.75 miles out and then turned around and came back. The scenery and the other runners, bicyclists and walkers kept me going. It would have been a lot harder to cover 7.5 miles if I were running laps around the block.
All of the foregoing things contributed to a good run. I drove home right afterwards and had another protein drink (GNC brand whey protein isolate 28 mixed with soy milk).
I didn’t drink any water during the run. That’s because I didn’t take any water with me. I may need to invest in one of those belts (I don’t want to carry a water bottle in my hand) that I’ve seen other runners wear with the holsters for small plastic flasks of water as I begin to close in on double digit runs.
A few hours after the run I began to feel the soreness in my legs. It wasn’t an injury-like pain but it was definitely painful. Even though I say the run was easy, I know that it was tough on my body.
Running 90 minutes really got me hungry. I’ve eaten a lot today after the run. The good news is that I cut off the eating at about 5:30pm.
After consuming the post-run protein drink, I made and ate an egg and cheese sandwich (3 eggs fried with PAM non-stick spray, 2 slices of double fiber wheat bread, some shredded cheddar cheese and some Shedd’s Spread). I ate this sandwich at about 2pm.
By around 4pm I was really hungry and I had a craving for burgers. This is where I made the classic “running to eat” mistake. I at a couple of big burgers from Wendy’s. The only positives to this are that I didn’t have any cheese on the burgers (I’m using this to make myself feel better about it).
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| This is my achilles heel! Mmmm.... |
Then, after an hour or so I drank about 16 ounces of skim milk. That’s not so bad. The bad part was that I snacked on some bite-sized candies from kids’ collection of “goodie bag” treats which they collect from the various birthday parties they attend every month.
I should have planned for the hunger in advance.
Oh well. It could be worse. And I should have been better.
My post-run diet aside, I feel very good about my half-marathon training. I feel very confident about my ability to complete the Schaumburg half-marathon on 11/27 given where I am in my training right now.
Given that I’m not focusing on my time for the 11/27 Schaumburg half-marathon I just need to build up my distance by another 5.7 miles over the next 8 weeks. I can do it!
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