Running by Feel

I sure did have a full weekend.  After my son and I ran the 10k Saturday morning, I came home and dropped off both my kids, grabbed my camera, then rushed out to take some pictures of a few friends at noon. (I’m excited to share those photos in the near future!)  After that, I came home and baked for four hours!  Our church was having a dessert auction to raise funds to send kids to camp this summer (including my kid), and because I love to bake, I stupidly agreed to make not one, not two, but three desserts. 😛 I’ll be sharing those photos (and recipes!) on my blog soon, too.  Between the race, the photo shoot, and the baking, I definitely had a day full of blog-able material, lol!

We were out late Saturday due to the dessert auction, and then got up early for church on Sunday, and then my poor son had a second and final tryout for hockey Sunday afternoon.  Between all the weekend activities and running 6 miles, I could tell he was starting to drag by the end of the tryout.  I was so proud of him, though—he never quit, and toward the end he even managed to score a goal one of the goalies (he’s defense, so he doesn’t score often).  I will say that he slept very well Sunday night!

Monday morning I got up early to run before work.  I had planned to before the sun, but as it turns out, I worked pretty hard this weekend, too! 😉  So, I couldn’t quite drag my happy butt out of bed at6am, but I did manage to get up about 6:50 and get out on the road by about 7:10.

Since I finished my half-marathon last week, and then took a week off before running in Saturday’s 10k with Jamie, it had been a while since I’d done a run just “for fun.”  I woke up with the intent to run 4 miles just because it sounded like a nice round number that I could do without too much stress.  (Ha…who would have ever thought I’d say that? 😉 )  I wasn’t sure what pace to run at, but then, as I was warming up, I decided not to run at a specific pace.  Instead, I decided to see what I could accomplish by just running to run… “run by feel,” as it were.

So, when I got out on the road, I started my Garmin, then I switched it to the time/date mode and left it there for the entire run.  I ran two miles down and two back (easy enough to do without looking at my Garmin, since my road is two miles long).

I had planned on a “comfortable run,” but I realized fairly quickly that I started out too fast to call it comfortable.  I then decided I’d do the first two miles at “comfortable” and then do the third mile slower.  As for the fourth mile, I figured I’d just wing it and run at a pace that felt challenging but not overly so.

I definitely needed the slow down by the time I hit the beginning of the third mile, because it was quite muggy and I realized that my body truly was tired after the hard work I’d put in the previous week (2 races in 6 days for a total of 19.3 miles!) Still, I just couldn’t slack off for long, and I put forth a little more effort in mile 4.  I waited for my Garmin to beep at the end, then turned it off.  Without looking at my stats, I walked into the house and asked Jamie to take a few pictures of me, which he agreed.

 

 

He’s always interested in my runs, and as we walked back outside, he asked me how far and how fast I’d run  I told him it was four miles, but I wasn’t sure how fast because I was “running by feel.” (Which I then had to explain to him.)  After a couple pictures, I made a big deal of pulling up my stats (and he continued to take pictures because he loves getting candid shots of me, lol).

 

 

When I got the average pace to display, I was horrified:  10:27!! What?! I thought, “There is no way I ran that slow!” Then, as I stared in disbelief, it turned to 10:28. Well, crap.  When I “stopped” it at the end, it didn’t actually stop, because it was still on the time/date mode.  Argh!!!  Jamie snapped a shot of me looking less than thrilled with my dumb mistake.

 

 

My final stats were less than ideal.

 

 

Nice. You like how my pace for the last .06 miles was 0? 😛 Obviously, it’s not hard to do the math and figure out that my overall pace was 9:37, which wasn’t bad for a four-mile muggy run, but I sure wish I could have the nice, neat numbers to look at. 😉

But I do have some other neat numbers to look at.  We’ll start with the not-so-great numbers.  I don’t think I posted about my weight last week because I was so discouraged.

 

 

Oh. My. God!!  I ran 13.1 miles and gained a pound and a half? That put me at 6.6 pounds ABOVE my goal weight, and 2.6 pounds above my panic weight.  I was beyond panicked all the way to horrified at that point.  But this week was a different story…

 

 

Woohoo!  I lost 3.2 pounds this week!  Thank God. I needed that boost, because I was getting really, really depressed.

As for running, my son and I are looking at what races for him to do next.  He is still determined to do the final 10k of the 3-race Kona series in October, and I’m hopeful that the hockey schedule will allow it.  {crossing fingers}  He’ll get a cool medal if he completes all three.  And let me tell you, that kid is all about the medals, lol! 😉  We’re looking at the options for another race this summer, more like a 5k, where he could work on his speed.  In addition, we’re trying to convince DS#2 to sign up for something, more likely a fun run than a real race.

We are definitely becoming a racing family—a fact which still astonishes me!  But it definitely makes me happy, and it seems to make my kids happy, too, so I’ll take it. 🙂

More about my future racing plans soon! Meanwhile, thanks so much for reading.