I had planned to spend this weekend working in the yard again, but it’s been raining since yesterday evening, so I knew I wasn’t going to get any yard work done. Luckily, it looks like tomorrow will be beautiful and all of the flowers I planted last weekend are surviving the thorough watering they’ve received this week, so tomorrow will be all about planting in the garden.
The good news is that the temperature has jumped significantly since the middle of last week, so even though it rained all day, it was still warm enough for me to be able to get in a good long run. I was hoping for around 7 miles, but since I didn’t really map out my route and I had to turn around due to some flooding, I ended up going a little longer than that. I wasn’t expecting to see anyone on my run since it was rainy, but I got passed around mile 3 (not too far onto the trail portion of my run) by a man and his dog – the dog was just trotting along behind him and was very disciplined, didn’t even look my way when he passed me. I wish my dogs were that well-trained! There are several sections of the greenway that are on boardwalks over swampy areas and the first one I went on was fine, but a little after mile 5 I ran into a completely flooded area (bottom right picture), so that’s when I had to turn around and figure out a different route home.
- Mile 1 – 11:11
- Mile 2 – 11:38
- Mile 3 – 11:26
- Mile 4 – 11:48
- Mile 5 – 11:35
- Mile 6 – 12:05 <– includes time looking at the map to figure out the fastest way back home
- Mile 7 – 10:50 <– good portion of downhill
- Mile 8 – 11:50 <– long wait for 2 stoplights
- MIle 9 – 10:31
- Last .7 – 12:57 <– IT band pain requiring extra walk breaks
One thing that I realized after the Kentucky half marathon is that I have more IT band pain when I run faster and when my legs are cold. After having to stop for several minutes waiting for stoplights near the end of mile 8, I definitely started to get a chill from the rainy weather, so I wasn’t really surprised at the IT band pain. I think the biggest take-away is to try to figure out a way to keep my legs warm when I run. I’m hoping this won’t be an issue for the marathon (I’m actually more concerned that the weather will be too warm for me), but I’ll just have to pack lots of options for race day.
Are you running this weekend?