Back and Running

I got back to Little Rock yesterday around 1pm, I had to actually do some work, it was still Friday and still a work day, so I didn’t get much done around the house. I did get unpacked, and got my clothes laid out for my run today. Talked to Annette and Kim about our run and then went to bed around 9:15pm, didn’t sleep, but went to bed.

Fast forward to today, what a difference, despite the fact that sleep eluded me for most of the night our long run today was actually a good one. The Little Rock Marathon Group was meeting at Murray Park in Little Rock for a 14 mile run.

Originally it was going to be me, Annette, Kim, Kelly and Michele. When I talked to Kim last night to make our final “meet up” arrangements she said she was not going, her knee has been killing her since last Saturday’s long run. She had decided to go to the ER this morning to get someone to look at it and give her a diagnosis. She did see another doc earlier in the week, but her knee has gotten worse instead of better. I’m glad she decided to look into it further. I hope it all goes well and she will be back to running with us next week!

We were to meet up at Academy Sports at 5:30 am, Annette called about 5:30 and said she was getting off the exit, Michele had over slept and they had waited an extra couple of minutes for her. Bummer, people were dropping like flies! Anyway, off we went to Little Rock. We made it pretty quickly, only about 20 minutes. I signed us in and got the directions and we all decided to go to the bathroom before we headed out. There was a line at the bathroom so we ended up not starting until about 6:08.

We were about a mile into our run when Annette’s phone rang, it was Michele, she was driving down Riverfront drive and BAM, there she was, we told her to turn around and park at the golf course and we would meet her there. She missed out on about 1.5 miles, but WOW, she really wanted to run with us 🙂 It was really funny. Oh and there was also the Davis brothers, they came up behind us and ran with us too. It made for an interesting start to our run!

Before we started we all had decided to try and keep an 11:00 minute pace. THANK GOODNESS. I have really been struggling on the long runs because we always start out so fast, I get tired and have to take walk breaks pretty quickly. NOT TODAY!! We didn’t take a walk break until mile 4 and it wasn’t even a walk break it was a re-fuel break. We all had our nutrients ready. GU or Carb-boom and water, it was perfect timing, we took in our fuel and water and were off again. You will see in the recap on mile 4 it was a little slower. Off again.

Our route took us down close to the River Market where we decided to take a bathroom break, it was a little off the route, but worth it. We were close to mile 7 by this point, I love the halfway points, so far I was feeling pretty good, not nearly as tired as I normally am at the halfway point. I know this has everything to do with pacing ourselves. We finish up and head to the Main Street bridge which will take us to the River Trail. End of the scenic route on the Little Rock side of the River.

Once we got on the River Trail, it was same ole, same ole. But, we made good time, I think the pace picked up some, I started getting tired around mile 9 or 10. All of a sudden I felt like I was going to throw up. Michele and Annette were in front of me and Kelly, I just stopped, I had to get some water or something, just a wave of nausea came over me. I have no idea what it was, we walked for a bit and then it went away. We started running again until we got to the Dog Park where we met up with Annette. This time Michele was gone, where was she? Apparently she was helping someone with the route or fuel belt and she was trying to make up the 1.5 miles she missed in the beginning.

Be sure and check out Annette’s blog, she will probably have a picture of me at the dog park, my back was killing me so I just laid down on the ground, I didn’t care, I was dying! Every once in a while I get this horrible pain in my left shoulder blade area, I can’t even describe it, but nothing will make it go away and to top it off, it hurts worse when I stop or only walk, so I had to lay down or run to make it quit.

While Annette and I were doing our thing at the Dog Park, Kelly took off too, she had to get back to get to her son’s ballgame. So, Annette and I were on our own. We took off and within a mile or so we saw Michele coming back our way and then it was the three of us. The Big Dam Bridge was coming up, but that meant we were almost done, Annette and I walked about 10 seconds right before the bridge and then we all ran up the entire bridge, we never stopped! We just paced ourselves and got over it, there was no wind today and that made a huge difference, I mean a HUGE difference.

When we were at the top of the bridge we ran into Brenda, Rock, Cindy and Lisa, they were doing 16 miles and had 5 more to go. We only had 1!!! Yippee!! Almost done. We ended up with 14.25 miles at an average pace of 11:01. How perfect is that? I have to tell you this was one of my best runs to date. Except for the back thing. Even though it was cold, 31 degrees, there was no wind, the route was great, the company was great, but we did miss Kim 😦 We all met up at Boulevard Bread after our run and that was the icing on the cake. I can only hope the rest of my long runs AND my marathon are as good!

14.24 miles, average pace 11:01, 2:36:47, 1341 calories burned, Avg/Max HR 164/180 – higher than I expected, I did have caffeine this morning, so that may have contributed to the higher than normal HR.

1. 11:28
2. 10:58
3. 10:50
4. 10:45
5. 11:49
6. 11:04
7. 11:08
8. 10:31
9. 11:17
10. 10:41
11. 10:58
12. 10:41
13. 11:03
14. 11:04
15. 10:33