Queens' Half

So - wow. Went out to Queens this morning and ran a pretty crappy run, even considering the heat and lack of training. Finished in 1:43:27.

From the start, I could tell it wasn't going as smoothly as planned. I was trying to do it as a training run and, in fact, was going to run with Gorgeous, but couldn't find her at the start. No worries: I came with the Engineer, who was planning to run around an 8:00/mile pace. "Alright", I thought, "This shouldn't be too bad". Well. From the first mile, my legs felt tired. Really tired. Which is strange, as I hadn't run for two days before. In fact, I had been so tired the day before that I had actually gotten about 10 hours sleep! Now, given the heat and such, the tiredness was understandable to a point but this was supposed to be a fairly easy pace for me. My lungs were fine. No problems there throughout the whole race. It was just my legs. I couldn't get into a rythym and my back started hurting.

We took the first mile at 8:19, the next at 7:50, the third at 7:35, then slowed down a bit again, as I knew that the Engineer had aimed for an average 8:00/mile pace. We kept running together through the first two out and backs. I'm pretty sure he was right behind me at around mile 8 but I was getting that feeling that, if I didn't speed up a bit, I would just walk off the course and call it a day. At this point, the heat was getting to me a bit. I drank too much water on the course and my stomach felt sloshy. I really think the key to this summer running is not to be in air conditioning unless you can help it. I should have insisted on no air last night!

After about mile 9 or so, other people were feeling it, too. My back was feeling much better - I think because I had sped up a bit, changing my stride. Since the injury, my stride has felt a bit different and my gluts and back have been tighter and hurting more. Passing people on this part - and the partial shade and breeze - made it feel better. Rounding out to mile 12, I was happy to be almost done and happy that I wasn't feeling too badly. Interestingly, my legs felt no more tired at mile 12 than they did at mile 1! Pushed the pace a bit the last mile or two but I didn't have my watch so I don't really know by how much.

Not an epic fail - my quad feels ok and my other parts are hurting only slightly. Still not the easy training run my time would indicate.

Hopefully, I'll have better luck on intellectual endeavors today!

The Sugar Shack

Ah, Baltimore!!!!!

After a relaxing night of playing scrabble and seeing the sights on the water, the Vivacious Redhead and I headed out for a steamy Baltimore run. We slept in and didn't leave until 8:00am or so, which was great for the stress levels but not quite as good for the temperature levels.

Since today was one of the last runs before training kicks in, I didn't stop my watch when we got to lights or when we stopped for water. I'm sure we were going slowly but it was nice - I never felt like I was pushing it at all and I got to be the chattering tour guide as we went through downtown Baltimore, up past the train station and where they were getting ready for Artscape, and up past John Hopkins University. Besides the run on the piers and the run up to the Science Center in the Harbor, it was basically a two-turn run from Fells Point over to Charles St, up and back. On the way back, which is more downhill, the Vivacious Redhead couldn't believe how steep some of the hills were that we had run up on the way out to Hopkins. Topped it all off with a 3/4 mile cool-down walk and some iced coffee. Delicious way to end a 10-mile run.