June 11th, 2011 – 10.05 Mile Run

The continued prayer is, “Lord keep me focused. Keep my mind stayed on You. Help me to bring You praise. I know You believe in me. Please help me in my unbelief. Amen.”

I started out this run with the sole purpose of covering 10 miles. It didn’t matter how long it took. I just wanted to be able to cover the distance because I hadn’t done it in quite some time.

I have the Half next weekend and I just need to get through it because I feel like I haven’t trained for it all. So this run was very important. Of course, I would like to PR, but at this point am just determined to finish it.

In order to PR, I have to finish in less than 2:45. I have been frustrated lately because I have been following a couple of people who had decided to train for a Half for various reasons: weight loss, better fitness, some life milestone, a sense of accomplishment, etc. They are very like me, not super-athletes, not stick thin, busy mothers and wives making time to train whenever they can. And they have managed to finish this distance in under 2:30, one was 2:33, but I’d gladly take that too.

So I looked back on my past blog entries to see if I could see where I went wrong.

With the Wounded Warrior Half, I finished in 2:45. After looking at the blog entry, I saw that I stopped at every mile to take a snap shot of every mile marker. I took pix of the funnier military signs and the cute Navy kids (well, they were grown, but they were 20-something).

It could be argued that this was an opportunity wasted. This took place on a Naval Airport Base so it was a flat course and if I was going to PR, this would have been the venue to do so. However…. It was my very first Half Marathon, so any finishing time would have been a PR. Also, I wanted to be very present for this race, so I am glad to have it well documented. But all the unnecessary stops really cut into my time. I can avoid that this time.

Also, for that race I had only trained for 10 miles. I had only covered the full distance once in my training. This remains an issue. Sure have several months of steady training under my belt now, but I have only covered 10 miles once in my training and have not covered the full distance. This being the week of, it’s likely that I will be tapering and not covering the full distance during training at all. So I fully expect to hit the mall. If I can stave it off until mile 10, as opposed to mile 7 or 9, I will consider myself a success.

The Rock’n’Roll Half Marathon was even worse as far as time goes. After looking at my blog entry for that race, I realized, I’d forgotten my watch in the car, so I couldn’t time my intervals. I had trained all year with 4 and 1 intervals but had no way of tracking it for the race. This was a major time killer. I finished in 2:50.

Also, I was scheduled to be on the ABC hit game show, WipeOut the next day. That was just a scheduling fluke. I had auditioned for the show, never dreaming that I’d be selected, but I was and we were set to shoot the day after the Half.

All the goals I had been nurturing all year were (no pun intended), wiped out. I just wanted to finish without hurting myself so I could be on the show the next day….. and then hurt myself. Which is exactly how it went.

Finally, miles 8 and 9 were almost completely uphill, so I ended up walking almost a mile, which sliced into my time. Having hills, so close to the end of the race was cruel and unusual…well maybe not unusual, but cruel.

Well, I have studied the course of the race this weekend and found it to be flatter than the routes I have been training on. This is good. I will *NOT* forget my watch, even if I have to sleep in it the night before! I have no bone-crushing game shows to appear on the next day and while Ventura is beautiful in spring, the nostalgia of my first Half is passed, so I won’t be stopping to take pix during the race.

With that in mind, even though I have only trained up to the 10 miles, I feel like I am up to posting a PR on this race. Anything under 2:45 would be fine with me and if I can add another medal to my collection, I will consider myself a success.