Week 7 Summary

It's a good thing I decided to do my long run on Sunday instead of Saturday this week. I woke up on Saturday to thunder and lighting--a clear sign that running was out of the question. Luckily for me, I decided to wait until Scott got back into town so we could do our long run together. It really stinks when you get into the mindset of doing a run and then mother nature gets in your way. The weather on Saturday eventually cleared up, but it was a HOT one!!

As for my run this morning, I can sum it up in three words: gorgeous, motivating and painful.

Gorgeous

I walked out of my condo at 7:15 am this morning to stretch for the run. I was overjoyed when I realized that the air was a bit crisp. It wasn't hot by any means and in fact, it was a perfect combination of chilly and warm. If I had to guess, the weather was in the upper 60s or lower 70s. It was overcast when I first started running and then mid-way it turned out to be pretty foggy. The waves on Lake Michigan were pretty big and they were slightly crashing on the lower path. The wind picked up a little bit and created a light mist along the lake shore running path. This was heavenly! At no point during my run did I ever feel hot or overheated. I can only hope that the half-marathon next week and the full marathon are similar to today's weather. Ha, if I was only that lucky.

Motivating

Today I ran 12 miles. I was just 1.1 miles short of running an official half-marathon, BUT I am running the Chicago Rock-n-Roll Half-Marathon on August 1st! According to my training plan, I am right on target to run 13 miles next week, so it works out quite perfectly. While I was running, I kept telling myself that if I could finish the run today, the race next week shouldn't be a problem. It must have worked because I had enough energy to run (okay, jog) the entire 12 miles. I didn't stop to walk at all. Yay! I attribute my awesome energy level to the delicious and carb-filled dinner I ate the night before, as well as the new energy fruit snacks I ate along the run. I forgot to take a picture of my new energy snack before I ate them, so I'll post a picture and all the details of them later this week (I have to buy more)!!!

I really didn't get tired until the last mile of my run today, but even so, I finished strong. I think I'm just really excited to get into race mode.

Painful

As you can see from my picture, I ended up icing my knees after my run. If there is one thing that is going to hurt my chances of finishing the marathon, it's going to be my knees. They started to kill me around mile 5, which is unusual for me. My knees haven't really been too much of a problem in the past, but today was an exception. They didn't stop hurting, so I iced them as soon as I got home. 12 hours later (as I type this blog), they hurt even more. Perhaps I'm experiencing "August Injuries" a bit early? I have 't ran this many miles in about a year, so I have a feeling my body is just reacting to the increased mileage. I have a doctor's appointment to get a full physical on Tuesday and I'm going to discuss marathon training and my knees with my doctor. I definitely want to be proactive about my body and nip potential injuries in the butt before they become a real problem.

All in all, it was a great run and I'm super pumped for the half-marathon next week! Bring it!