Filed under: Austin, events, Heath + Beauty, lifestyle, personal, running, sports, travel | Tags: 10 mile run, austin half marathon, Austin half marathon course video, austin marathon, half marathons, Mexico, Puerto Vallarta, running, Town Lake Trail, training for a half marathon
I am supposed to be packing my bags for Puerto Vallarta right now. I innocently dropped in on the interweb to check up on logistical things like, “How much does it park to cost at the South Austin Ghetto Terminal?” and, “Just HOW perfect will the weather be in Mexico this weekend?”. Suddenly an hour had passed and I’d invited all of my family to join my family tree on facebook, had watched the half-marathon course video & had read all about Sam Lufti suing Britney & her dad on people.com (guilty pleasure).
So now I’m going to blow another hour with a short & sweet update on my half marathon training progress. Besides, it’s not like it’s going to take that long to pack 3 bikinis and some flip-flops, right?
Sunday was my first double-digit long run. 10 Miles. During last week’s 9 mile run I felt really good. Deceptively good. I figured 10 miles would be nuthin’.
Boy, am I an idiot! 10 Miles was rough. It didn’t help that this was the first long run that I monitored my pace. I was hoping to complete the Town Lake Trail (all of it) in 1:30:00 (9:00 mile pace). I thought that carrying a watch would be fun, informative, inspirational. Instead, it turned me into a mile marker vulure and tricked me into performing lots of odd mathematical calculations between posts. By the end both my brain and my body were exhausted. If I made it to a marker on time, I was thrilled and my feet seemed to soar above the trail. But if I’d encountered hills or traffic and had fallen behind, I was crushed. From there on I noticed every hurt, every weak stride and every labored exhale. Running with a watch turned me into a little whiner.
In the end I finished the 10 just a smidge off my goal time – in 1:33:30. I still haven’t decided if I will wear the watch on my next (and last) long run: a 11 or 12 miler on Sunday.
In other race-related news, I found out today that the Austin Half & Full Marathon was voted “Greenest race in America” by Runner’s World in 2008 and that they’ve stepped up their efforts this year to be even more green! I was really excited to see that they’re going to be composting food waste at the finish line, and that HEB will not be providing any items in styrofoam. Yay for physical AND environmental health, all in one!
That’s it for my update. Now I leave you with this – my inspiration to log off of the interweb and dig my swimsuits out from the depths of my chest of drawers. Beautiful, isn’t it?:
