A Not-So-Easy Easy Run

I think I’ll do something different this week and instead of ending with my weigh-in, I’ll start with it.  Last Monday, I weighed in at 123.4.  I had a typical week of hockey, football and more hockey, so there was a lot of crock pot cooking in our house. (It’s a necessity when the boys are in school and sports.)  Over the weekend, we ate out twice, which is a rarity for me, but I did choose salads both times.  Sunday night, I made a new dish called Lasagna soup (which I’ll have to make again so I can take pictures and share the recipe). And when all was said and done…

How’s that for anti-climactic? 😛 I wish so desperately to get down below 120 again, but I just try to convince myself that staying the same is better than gaining.  Thpppppbbbt.

And now, onto my week and what may or may not have contributed to the lack of change in my weight.

Saturday, I ran 8 miles, and I decided to try something different. I’ve been running all my long runs slowly…like, really slowly.  My last three or four long runs have been in the 11:20-11:40 range.  It just seems slow, and one of my goals for next year is to make my long run pace closer to the 11-ish range.  I’ve run three half-marathons at 10:20 or better (my last half doesn’t count), so it just seems depressing that I can’t even eek out a sub-11 on a 7 or 8 mile run lately. 🙁

So, with zero scientific evidence to back up my plan, I set out on Saturday to make my “easy” run in the 11:00-11:10 range.   Of course, that was a plan made before I went outside and discovered the winds gusting to 20 mph. :/  Ah, well, it would be boring to have a nice, easy run. (And, just for comparison, the winds for my half-marathon PR race were gusting to 40!)

I tried to take some pictures along the way, but I didn’t want to waste too much time, so these are all you get.

I know, I know, what awful pictures!*  I was in a hurry!!

When I was done, I was really winded (ha!), but I had succeeded in my goal!

With a little bit to spare, even.  To be honest, though, I still didn’t feel great about the run.  It was frustrating for me to discover that running 8 miles at a 10:53 pace was much harder than I would have expected.  I feel so out of shape!

That was made even more clear to me on Monday. That’s always my speed work day when I’m training for a race, and I’ve been continuing to do 3-mile speed runs each week, even though I’m not training for anything.  I’ve held pretty well at 9:40 or lower, including a sub 9:30 a couple of weeks ago.  I went out yesterday morning to do it again, but some days, it just isn’t there, and yesterday was one of those days. I was tired and it was raining for much of the run, so I could only convince myself to do two miles of speed work.  That second mile on the way back was quite wet.  When I was finished, I had a 9:41 pace…not even close to my best, and for less miles!  I paused for a few minutes and then did one more mile just so I could feel better about getting three in, but I sure felt discouraged.

To keep this from being a total downer post about my bad runs, I can report that we had a very fun weekend, which included a trip to the orchard with our church.  It was actually the same trip that we’d done with our youth group in 2011, and when I realized it was the same place, I badgered my boys into re-staging a picture that I’d taken back then, which I had turned into a photo magnet that is on the file cabinet in my home office.  They only complained a little bit about being forced into posing for a repeat performance.  But oh my goodness, they’re so cuuuuuuuuuuute!!

My boys are just so handsome, aren’t they?!  Thanks for letting me share. 😀

And thanks for reading!

*It kills me to post such horrible quality pictures when we’re in the middle of a beautiful fall in Michigan!  So…here are some shots I took with the real camera last week. 😉