Yesterday was hard…

To begin with, I did an incredibly dumb thing and reduced that amount of Ibuprofen my physician told me to take.  My thought was that since I was feeling better and taking some really good fish oil, maybe I could reduce the amount of Ibuprofen I take.  Bad thought.  My back hurt so much yesterday, I wasn’t sure I could run after work as has been my habit.  The good news is I didn’t let that stop me.  I have learned over the past 10 months that if I want something or someone to talk me out of running, then I won’t run.  With all that I have, I want to finish a full marathon (planned for this fall) and be able to add my name to my siblings as having completed such a feat.  Of course it will be about 20 years later than they, but better late than never.

Okay, onto the prep.  According to the run plan that TJ helped me develop, yesterday was a tempo run.  My plan was to run 3 miles between 7:23 and 7:29.  I must say I was a bit worried with the way my back felt, but after work I got on my running clothes and shoes (Saucony Type A5 – great racing flats) and started my mile warm up run.  At the end of the mile, I kicked into my tempo run.  Here are the splits from my run:

Mile 1  – 8:87
Mile 2 – 7:05
Mile 3 – 7:06
Mile 4 – 8:31
Mile 5 – 9:14

My plan was to run 3 miles in the mid 7 minute pace.  I made it 2 miles and had to slow down.  I try to always keep my goals I set, but as TJ said, I ran my miles too fast and much faster than my plan.  It was really hard to do 2 miles, but three… not gonna happen.

I did get my 5 miles in and did an overall pace of 8:11 which is good for me.  Also I ran a 5K based on the middle 3 miles in 23:34 which is my second fastest time and that without anyone around me for motivation.  Overall I’m happy and now my goal is to get to 3 miles next week.  It gives me something for which to prepare.

Today is a regular run for 6 miles and then tomorrow, hill runs.  Why do I punish my body this way!  I guess it is because the pain of the run is long forgotten after the results come in.  I want this half marathon to be my best.  Of course being my first one it will be, but still I don’t want to look back and say, I could have done more.