This was my first official day running in the “winter” – but with highs today near 60, it certainly didn’t feel like winter! My training called for a 10.5 mile run this weekend (yesterday, actually), and I went out with intentions of completing the full 10.5 miles, even though I did a half marathon last weekend, but my IT band it still flaring up, so I only did about 7.25 miles. I wanted to keep running, but I figure it’s probably better to continue to rest and stretch my IT band instead of pushing it this early – I still have a lot of time to train. During miles 4 & 6, I at some crackers (trying solid food instead of GU on this run), which slowed down my pace a bit and during a few of my walk breaks I stopped to take some pictures. I probably should have just stopped at 7 miles, but I tried to keep going and it clearly shows how much I had slowed down for that last .27. I was just going to do a simple out and back, but I had to turn around early because of a huge tree in the path! I figured it wasn’t worth trying to climb over that only to have to do it again when I came back, so I just headed back and decided to keep going past where I had parked until I finally had to turn back because of my knee.

Mile 1 – 11:40
Mile 2 – 11:08
Mile 3 – 11:36
Mile 4 – 13:35
Mile 5 – 12:05
Mile 6 – 12:39
Mile 7 – 12:53
last .27 – 18:45

Lesson learned: the crackers worked well as fuel during the race, but it definitely takes me a lot longer to eat them than GU, so as I increase my training mileage, I may try to alternate the two.

Did you get any good runs in this weekend?