The solo half marathon I planned for but didn’t finish on a dreary day last Super Bowl Sunday, February 7th (http://noeldlp.blogspot.com/2010/02/running-unfocused.html), was finally achieved on this sunny Saturday morning on an out and back flat course. In fact I exceeded 13.1 miles and finished 13.5 miles with an unbelievable 10 minutes per mile pace, on an unassisted solo long run, despite having to break stride to pick up a crisp one dollar bill left behind by someone who apparently didn’t need it. I thought my pace was about 10:30’s. Let me make it clear that this was a 4 minute run with 1 minute walk break all the way, so the 10 minute pace was darn good. The mantra was “lose yourself in the run”, which worked when the going got tougher. With 4 miles to go my stride started to get ragged, and with 2 miles left, it felt downright ugly. This is a danger zone for me because when I start losing control of my stride, that means my muscles are tired and my ankle tendons bear the brunt of my weight. Indeed, I felt sharp pains on my right inner ankle where my PTTD is in the last 4 miles but I was able to hold on and finish. Otherwise it would have been a long, limping walk back home.
There were not too many water fountains along the way and the first one I stopped by to drink from was in the office of the Camp Fire Girls (kinda like the Girl Scouts). I only knew it was there because when I was still able to train with my neighbor Katherine, we used to stop and drink there. By that time I was already past 6 ½ miles into the run. The other water fountain I knew about were full of kids playing Little League Baseball and it would have been difficult to navigate my way around the kids and their parents. I looked for the last possible water fountain I knew at a small park two miles from home but it doesn’t exist anymore. Oh well, another dehydration run.
Oh my goodness! I just checked my post run weight and I lost 5 pounds of fluids. I started at 118.2 and ended with 113.2. I’ve never weighed that low before even when training for the marathon last year. Time to chug the Gatorade. No wonder I felt ragged towards the end.
As I finish this entry, I’ve treated myself to Chinese food for lunch, and I am continuing to rehydrate my tissues, plus ice and brace my ankles. Now I have a decision to make. Should I or should I not sign up and run the Palos Verdes Half Marathon two weeks from now?
Postscript: I diverted from the out and back course slightly on the way home because I espied a new street named Worsham at a soon to be developed piece of land called Douglas Park. So I ran on that street until a reached a roundabout (rotunda) then ran around to return to the route I was running in.
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