Getting my Groove Back (or trying anyway)

My title is referring to my running for the most part!  I've finally been getting back into everything and it feels awesome.  For those who don't know, I was supposed to run a half marathon on Sunday.  I was undecided whether to run it or not because I was worried about my knee and making it worse.  I decided if I could find a ride I would do it, and I got a ride.  Once I got to the race I talked to someone who switched from the 18.12 miles to the half marathon.  Oh I forgot to mention, there was also an 18.12 mile race option in commemoration of the War of 1812, the race was actually called the 1812 challenge.  Anyway, one of my Dailymile friends- who I got to meet in person, yay!  - had told me her longest run in the past few months was only ten miles, and she was doing the 18-miler.  Being the person I am, and regretting that I had signed up for only the half marathon, I found someone 15 minutes before the start of the race and switched from the half marathon to the 18-miler!

  I was completely unprepared to run 18 miles, though I had carbo loaded the night before, and ate a decent amount before the race.  My longest run since the marathon in April had been 13.5 miles.  My reasoning was I had only run 20 miles before the marathon, and that's a difference of 6.2 miles.  If I could do that, then I could definitely tack on less than FIVE miles for an 18-miler.  Besides, I've run over 18 miles four times, though the only time it was at race pace was during the marathon!  Speed does add another dimension to it all.  Anyway, did the 18.12 miles, and actually felt pretty decent until somewhere between miles 14 and 15.  I tried to go out slow, and kept my average pace in the 8:20-8:50 minute miles.  My half marathon pace is usually in the 8:05 - 8:15 minute mile pace, depending on the day and how much I've trained, so I was running slower.  My half marathon time during the race was somewhere in the 1:54 range (my garmin was sort of jacked up, so I'm not sure what the exact time was), which is slower than my "average" half marathon pace by 5-6 minutes (my best time is 1:46:05, or something like that - I can't remember the EXACT seconds, but it's in the low 1:46 range, and I've run around there twice), so I was definitely slower than I could have been.  Nonetheless, my pace sorta plummeted - as in, slowed down, not went up - around mile 15.  My miles went from being in the 8-minute range to the 9-minute range until the last mile, where I managed to squeek an 8:56, and then kick in the finish.  How I managed to find any energy to put in a final kick, I'm not sure, but I did.  Apparently I looked pretty beat up when I stopped running too - I think I was staggering a bit - because they had me go to the medical tent, hahaha.  I ended up coming in third in my age group, which isn't too bad considering the fact that I was completely unprepared and untrained to race 18.12 miles!  I'm pretty optimistic about the fact I did it with little pain.  Granted, I used an IT Band strap (those things are amazing, by the way), along with compression shorts and tights.  There was some knee pain at points, but tightening the IT Band strap helped.  I stopped a couple of times to adjust, but since I wasn't out to win the race, I was okay with stopping.  I had planned on treating the run like a training run anyway (though anyone who knows me knows that my training pace for that distance is a LOT slower than what I ran!)

  I am glad I did the run though - now I got my 18 miles out of the way!  I won't be increasing my long run distance THIS week though!  I'm still in recovery mode, even though it's been like four days.  I managed five miles today, though I've been throwing in walking up/down hills so as to give my legs a break.  I think the longest distance I'm going to do this week is around eight miles, probably on Sunday.  But I'm not going to put anything in stone, because that's how I end up hurting myself.  And since I'm still recovering from this whole IT Band thing... yeah... gonna be careful :)  Also, the medications I'm on.  I think they dehydrate me.  I've always kinda been prone to getting dehydrated anyway, but every morning when I wake up my mouth feels like a desert.  

  I am going to post some pictures once they are all up!  

I started that yesterday and never posted... typical.  Two nights in a row of terrible sleep.  I woke up so many times.  I thought I was over not sleeping well at night - guess I was wrong!  I think I need to watch out for what time I do my runs.  I did my run yesterday around 5:30, which means I finished sometime around 6:30, and I laid down for bed around 9:30.  Hm, either that or I'm running too much, and my body has having a hard time slowing down.  I know, that's funny, considering I only ran 37 miles last week total, and I've hardly run at all this week (seven miles so far, though it's recovery for me after Sunday's race!)  Well, either way, my heart rate has been pretty high lately - like, in the 80's.  That's kinda high for someone who runs a decent amount.  Ideally, it should at least be in the 60's.  Usually when I'm in good running shape it's somewhere in the high 50's.  Either way, the 80s are high.  At least my blood pressure is low... 98/66 yesterday.  The nurse who took my blood pressure was concerned.  I told her it's always that low, but she insisted on doing the other arm, which was 100/66.  She asked if I get dizzy and if I am tired frequently.  Well, dizzy, yes.  ESPECIALLY now with my medications - but I got easily dizzy in the past as well.

Now I'm rambling, so I shall end this post.   The initial point, though, was that I am so happy that I'm getting back into running regularly.  Ideally, my knee will be good to go without an IT Band Strap, but if it means I can run regularly, I will deal with wearing the strap until it heals.    Have a wonderful day readers :)

Nina