Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Alarm Malfunction

This morning I was supposed to get up and go running with the Terriers. I was really excited about doing so last night because I thought that this might be the week where I could do the whole run since I haven't had any foot problems recently and I was hoping to push myself a little bit and see how it went.

Except, last night at 1:15 AM I got a really nice text from Drew. Now that I'm awake and can think clearly about the situation, I'm 99% sure that text prompted me to press some buttons on my alarm clock, which led to me not waking up for the Terrier run since my alarm didn't go off as planned. I guess that I needed the extra rest.

That meant that after work today I would have to go for a run on my own. I thought about what route to take, because I knew I didn't want to go to the gym and run on the treadmill. I decided that I would go over to the Westside Highway and run along the river instead of going to the park. I walked from my apartment over there as a bit of a warm-up. I didn't really have a clear plan in mind, I figured that I would just try to run for 30 minutes and see how far I could get.

I started out at a pretty slow pace and just wanted to maintain that throughout the run. It's funny because running lets you see a lot of stuff that you miss on your bike. I noticed all sorts of interesting things, including steps that go down into the Hudson. I actually wonder what would happen if I just walked right down and into the water for a practice OWS? I also didn't take my iPod, because I wanted to practice running outdoors without any distractions and sort-of simulate the race conditions.

I got passed by every single other runner that I saw, but I was okay with that. All I wanted to do was keep putting one foot in front of the other. I am a tiny bit disappointed to report that at 18:08, I looked at my watch and told myself that I could take a 10 second walking break, so I did. Even though I know those 10 seconds don't critically impact my overall time or pacing, it was really more the principle that I just wanted to keep running. I'm sure that I could have done it, but something about resting for just 10 seconds made me be able to finish, so maybe it was worth it?

I ended up running a total of 2.9 miles in 30 minutes (10:20 pace). I'm pretty estatic to find that out. While I was running, I felt like I was going so slow, so I know that I'll be able to go faster. Also, when finishing up, it was really weird because I noticed that I wasn't winded at all, which means that my cardiovascular system must be okay with the time spent exercising, it was more that my legs were tired. I'm hoping that they'll be able to carry me through the bike and run.

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