I had to do 10 miles this morning and I was pretty ambivalent about it. I drove over to where Tanner practices for the wide sidewalks. Anyway, you know that feeling when you take your first few steps and everything screams, "shit, this is going to suck?" Well, that was how I started. I was already negotiating with myself before I finished the first mile. You know those conversations you have with yourself: just go out 3 miles and turn around if it still sucks; you can make it up later; or, if you finish 10 miles you can have a smoothie from Tropical Smoothie cafe; sometimes I use extreme motivation such as: you better move your ass 'cause you don't want to admit to Pete (who is training hard to be able to run the OBX too ) that I wimped out. Things hurt and the wind was up and in my face for the first 2 miles. That's when things began to turn around.
My body settled in, things stopped hurting and my heart rate slowed down. By mile 5, I was planning on 12 instead of 10. That would make me really proud of myself. By mile 8, I felt great and decided I wanted to see if I could run even longer than 12. Now, it was just a science experiment between my body and the heart rate monitor.
Question: How far can I run and still maintain my easy heart rate and my current pace? Answer: I was able to run 15 miles, maintain the low heart rate and keep the same pace that I ran the earlier miles. That said, at the end of that last mile, my heart rate was creeping and my pace was slowing, so I found the end of my run for today. I probably ruined my speed work for tomorrow, but sometimes you have to take advantage of a good run and let it take you as far as you can.
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