14.2 Miles!

My run. Pretty impressive hu?

Today I took it easy until Pete got home from work, then I headed out for my run:

R: Almost 3hour long run. Maintain RPE of 3 throughout. Use
nutrition/hydration you worked on in past weeks. Long stretch afterwards
and hearty recovery meal of both carbs and protein.

I don't know exactly what "Almost" 3 hours is, but I decided to shoot for 2:45.  The house smelled like curry when. What a nice thing to look forward to coming home to!

I did the same run I did for my last long run, up through The Avenues, but this time I planned to come back the same long way I went. It seemed pretty slow going, but I was hoping to get to my turn around point at the top  by 1:30, and I made it there by 1:23. 

I felt so good when I got to the top! This time I was more careful, and took the big down-hill turn wider on the road where it was more even, and I had no pain in my knee at all! It was awesome running fast down that hill too! What a great way to practice going fast without having your heart-rate shoot up! As long as you're careful not to hurt yourself., that is.

I stopped at that beautiful little deli on the way down for a bathroom break. I love that place. 

I felt so good and fast for a while that I was thinking I might have to add a mile on at the end or something. I needed have worried about that, though. By the time I got about 2 miles from home, my feet were starting to hurt and I was having a hard time enjoying myself. The bottom of my left foot had a few minutes where it started having pain. It wasn't the same foot I broke, or in the same place, but I just kept hearing the doctors words in my mind: "If you would have kept running on it, it would have broken all the way." So I was just thinking, "Please stop hurting, please stop hurting," and it did stop. It was fine. 

When I got to the last mile, Vertigo by U2 came on so that really helped me get home. I was able to stop thinking about my aching legs and feet for a little while. Then I stopped, and everything started hurting. Isn't that weird that when you stop running, it starts hurting? At least that's how it is with me. I got home at exactly 2:45 so I guess that was a pretty good route I planned out!

I did a total of 14.2 miles at about 11:30 minute mile pace. If I can do that for the whole marathon (which I don't know if I could, I was feeling pretty tired and sore at the end), I would finish at almost exactly 5 hours. That would be great!

I've had a bath, and my curry (though it was quite disappointing - didn't taste nearly as good as it smelled), and now I've got my compression socks on and I would like to go to bed. Elle is still up and crying, though. Hopefully she'll go to sleep soon.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that Ethan seems much better today! I didn't even worry about taking him to a doctor, I think it was just the scratches hurting him so bad. What a relief!