Holy running shoes

Today, according to MapMyRun I ran 17.8km in 100 minutes. I tried to post my route to this blog, but for some reason the HTML won't' work properly.

I'm a little afraid of jinxing myself, because I'll be happy with anything under two hours 10, but I'm starting to think a two hour time might not be unrealistic.

I died a little death at around one hour 25 today, but then I hadn't really taken on any water, and a gel shot would probably have helped. Fresh legs would have helped as well. I can't believe I was almost not going to run today. After over an hour at the dentist yesterday my jaw spasmed up at around two a.m. this morning. Between five a.m. and 6 a.m. I turned my alarm off and then on again two or three times, and even as I was in the bathroom getting ready between 6.30 and 7 I nearly turned around and got back into bed again several times. I told myself I could sleep in and run later, give my jaw a chance to recover, wait till it was warmer.

I still felt rotten right up till we set out. I just couldn't get warm. But then something strange happened again. I started running and everything just felt ok. And everything continued to feel ok for most of the run. I led the pack right up till I had to stop at Chaffers to do up a shoe lace. After that I simply focused on picking off one runner after another, even overtaking Sarah, who was being sensible and cautious and maintaining a steady pace.

We were blessed with another perfect, crisp clear and windless morning today. How different from the weather I remember training in last winter. I love how gorgeous my city looks on a day like this. It makes running less painful and at times, sheer pleasure.

I think there was something good in running to Westpac Stadium before we headed out around the Bays. It meant that we didn't have far to run before we could turn around. For some reason today the thought popped into my head that it was only 50 minutes before I could head back to the gym, and 50 minutes wasn't that long. So I just kept pushing myself onwards.

I kept pushing onwards most of the way back as well. At around Te Papa however I think I ran out of fuel. Emma commented that I slowed down and that something changed, and indeed it did. I started to feel slightly nauseaus. Not majorly, but enough to cause me a little discomfort. So I tried not to let it hurt that Jo overtook me again, and concentrated on just putting one foot in front of the other.

Sarah and I met on the Stadium concourse and jogged slowly back down onto Lambton Quay, up Woodward onto the Terrace, then down the Terrace and back for a total of 100 minutes. When I stopped it took a few minutes for the nausea to die completely, but all things considered I didn't feel too bad, and at no point did I feel like I would need to vomit. I think more water and a gel shot at around one hour 10 would have worked wonders for the energy levels. I guess I just don't have a lot of fuel to burn.

So it was onto Body Balance. I told Clare she wasn't allowed to hassle us during the strength poses, but in the end she had only compliments for me, until, nodding my head in response to her comments, I overbalanced and fell flat on my backside from Warrior 2! However both Sarah and I marveled that the strength poses and balance poses felt remarkably good all things considered. My quads feel fine. All the soreness seems to be in my glutes, with only a slight nag above my right knee. Even my jaw's not as bad as it was this morning. My technique is obviously lightyears away from what it was even at the start of this squad.

A leisurely walk back to Xtreme, a shower, and then Sarah and I enjoyed a well-deserved lunch at Subway, before she headed off to a movie and I headed off to do the groceries.

What a great day. I'm going to try to slip in one more long run this week - hopefully Tuesday night, if everything goes well.

NB: Later edit - 17.8 is probably a touch generous, but only by a few hundred metres. We still covered an impressive amount of pavement today!