Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
I’m not gonna lie — this morning’s ten mile training run was ROUGH. It was hot as eff (eff is really hot, fyi) and the sun was beating down on us relentlessly the whole time. But we did it, dammit:
My training buddy Ashley is flying out to the west coast later today for vacation, so we ran this morning instead of tomorrow and hit up a different trail — the W&OD trail — closer to her house. It’s a nice trail that goes for ages all through VA, but it’s asphalt, so it’s harder on the knees than our usual dirt trail and hotter since the heat was radiating up from the pavement! Hillier, too. Thank god for my Camelbak! Still in love:
Most of the trail we were on (we did an out and back run) had absolutely no shade, which made it REALLY hard. Mile 4 and 6 were fun, though — we took some offshoots into the woods and it was much better! Even though the trail was a bit hillier in the woods, we went by some pretty streams and the shade and trees were really refreshing. It made us want to sign up for a trail race! Have any of you done a trail race? Are they fun?
I was also rocking my new Brooks running shoes, and I felt a real difference in the support level. Yay!
We did the 10 miles in 1:30:21, for an average pace of 9:02. Here are our stats — with a disclaimer that we stopped at miles 2, 5, and 8 for quick (untimed) walking/trying not to die of heat breaks.
- Mile 1: 8:15
- Mile 2: 8:42
- Mile 3: 8:37
- Mile 4: 8:58 (in the woods — hillier but shady yay!)
- Mile 5: 8:47 (turn around point, feeling rejuvenated)
- Mile 6: 9:19 (back in the woods — yay!)
- Mile 7: 9:25 (back in the sun — heat radiating from pavement legs tired help)
- Mile 8: 9:24 (kill me it’s so hot omg)
- Mile 9: 9:21 (why the eff am I training for a half marathon again?!)
- Mile 10: 9:32 (blazing sun; checking our watches every second; the word “torture” was used by both of us… lol)
Hahha… you win some, you lose some, right?! I think I need to get my running mojo back — the past few long runs I have TOTALLY not been feeling and just wanting to not be training for something anymore. Help! Give me some motivation, people! 🙂
Now I’m chilling with my BFFs, frozen peas:
And getting ready to start studying — this coming week is finals week and Anatomy & Physiology is going to be crazy hard — we’re so behind we have to go in tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. for an extra lecture — ugh!
