Running after Biking...

On Sunday, I met the the MoCo Mafia, well it ended up being me with 4 guys and we hit a new trail. Same trail we ran the week before, although it was much warmer. The scenery is beautiful but after a while, staring at trees without leaves and water gets old.

Quickly I was left by myself. The "boys" ran ahead. Two were going for 15 and two for 12, but I just wanted to run the 10 that I had managed the week before. I think it may have been better to run by myself in a way. It forced me to run the way I felt (which sometimes was not good) and not try to keep up with someone. Thankfully, I had my music to try and escape. The first 5 miles stunk! I lost sign of the "boys" before mile 2. I hated every minute of it. My legs hurt, my HR was up, I was cold, I was hot, I was sad (to be by myself), I was bored, I was not finding my passion. I even stopped twice to stretch my right IT band because running on the little rocks was not feeling good.

But something happened at the turn around. My new goal was to finish before the "boys" caught me. Sounded simple - I mean they had planned to run 12-15 miles. BTW: TG lapped me by over a mile last Sunday. I was crusing along. Noticing things that I had not seen on the way out. I sort of played with an Egret who kept landing ahead of me, but as I got closer would fly a little further away... this happened about 9 times. It was beautiful.

Finally I finished 10.25 miles in 1:39:40 (week before it was 1:40:34, a year ago it was 1:27:19). And then I waited for the "boys". I enjoyed the scenery much more after I was done!

Ironman arrived, complained about his achy legs from the ride the day before, but basically nailed a 15 miler. TG arrived having stopped and walked with another Mafia member who was hurtin - his 2nd time running 15 miles (HOW AWESOME IS THAT?). The Mafia member who was hurtin (I need to come up with a name for him) finished.... longest run for him. SuperDave made it back too... we all finished. I even snapped some photos for them.

My speed has completely disappeared. My HR stayed around 150 only when I was running 9:45 min miles - a long way away from my 8:15s a year ago. :-(

My new goal for my March Half marathon (DC RnR) is to finish without walking.