13.4 Miles!

Last night was one of those nights. Elle was awake at 1, then again at around 4, then she came and got in bed with me just before my alarm went off at 5:30. I turned the alarm off while she went back to sleep on my arm, and Pete told me to just go running later. I thought about it, but when else would I be able to do it? I laid there listening to the birds singing until Elle went back to sleep. Then I got up and put her back in her bed. It was only 15 minutes later than I wanted to get up so I just had some oatmeal, got dressed, got my fuel belt packed and my ipod and headed out.

R: 150 minutes tempo
wu: 15 minutes RPE 3
main: 2 hours at RPE 4-5
cd: 15 minutes at RPE 3

I took a long route up to the avenues, which is where I ran with Heather that one time. I skipped the really big hill, but did get some good hills in on my way up 2nd Avenue. My goal was to reach the top which was 7.1 miles. 

I started out really easy and kept my heart-rate at around 150 for the first half an hour. This felt really good, and I was just happy to be out running. When I got to the half hour (I thought it was 30 minutes, not 15, oops) I went just a little harder, keeping my hear-rate around 160, though it did get higher on the hills.

The Avenues is just such a beautiful place to run! It's all beautiful, old houses with pretty gardens, and the sidewalk is all shaded from the may trees. Plus there are not many cars, and the people you see are very friendly. I wish I would have dared to go up there when I was training for the marathon, the hills would have done me good!

When I got towards the top, I was looking around for some business or something that would have a public restroom, and I found a little coffee shop/deli that I stopped at. It looked like a really nice place, and they were very nice to let me use their restroom even though I wasn't a customer. I'll have to go back there sometime. 

I made it to the top at about 1:30, so I thought I'd try to make good time on the way back down. I wasn't careful enough and when I started down the first hill, I felt this twinge in my knee and it hurt. I was just like, "Dang it!" Luckily, after I stopped, stretched it a little and wiggled my food around, it seemed to go back into place or something and felt better. I felt fine until I got to the next hill, then it did it again. Once again, I stopped, stretched, wiggled my foot around, and it was fine. It was really weird, and I was kind of worried about it, but it didn't really hurt much after that.

I took a shorter way back home, but I probably would have had time to do the whole 7.1 because I had to run up and down my street a little to get to 2:30. I was feeling really good, though. When I was almost home, my favorite Foo Fighters song came on, and I had to go around the block because I didn't want to stop. I felt like I could have kept running for a while longer, but I stopped at 2:31.

I stretched really good, had some recoverite, had a hot bath, rubbed my legs down, then put on my compression socks and I iced my knees while I took Pete to work. 

I also got to take a nice long nap while Elle slept. For some reason, she was really tired today. Hmmm.

Oh, and my total distance was 13.4 miles today!