Wednesday, October 16, 2013

7 Mile Run in Wilmington

I was back in Wilmington last weekend, and knew I would have to do a long run while I was there. I was there Friday evening through Monday afternoon, and couldn't put the run off that whole time. It took me a while to plot out a route. I haven't really done much running at all in Wilmington. In high school I tried cross country for a season, but put in almost zero effort. Besides going on an occasional walk with my mom, I never did any running. I wasn't sure where the good running areas were, which streets had side walks, where the hills were. Thankfully, Wilmington is much less hilly than Charlottesville. I picked a really easy route that included just a few turns, and my mom verified that it had sidewalks the whole way.

The only problem was that my back was still hurting. I strained something in my back last Monday night doing a KB workout, and it still hasn't healed itself. Working out on Wednesday probably didn't help things, and as of Friday, it was just getting worse. I was determined to still run, and was just planning on going slow. My training plan said to do 3 miles steady, 3 miles fast, and then 1 mile steady. I had no idea how I was going to be able to regulate my speed that much, so Joey just told me to make sure the "3 miles fast" section didn't feel easy. He said to make sure it felt difficult, even if I was still running the same pace, or even slower, since I would probably be tired by then.

I started out, and my legs were in a lot of pain. My entire right leg hurt, from my calf to my hip. After about a mile, the pain subsided, but at 1.5 miles, I felt something wrench in my back. It hurt quite a bit, but I tried to keep my left arm as close to my body as possible, without swinging it around, and that seemed to make things better. (You can see in my splits that 1.5-2 miles was my slowest portion.) Once I started going downhill after the first 3 miles, things got better. I picked up my pace, which wasn't surprising in the downhill portion, but was surprised when I realized I was keeping that faster pace. I really got into a good stride after the first 4 miles. I was extremely annoyed when a light forced me to stop just before 5 miles, since I was afraid I was going to lose my momentum. I ran in place until the light changed, and then tried to pick up at the same pace I was going before. Apparently I overshot the pace, since I completed mile 6 more than a minute faster than the previous mile! It was also mostly downhill, which helped a lot. I knew that once I got to the 6 mile mark, not only would I be almost home, but I could go back to a "steady" pace. Somehow, once I got there, I still kept a pretty good pace up, and that ended up being my second fastest mile.

I felt great once I got home. I walked around the neighborhood for a few minutes to cool down, and then went inside and bragged to my mom about my run! I was really happy that I finished 2.5 minutes faster than the previous time I did 7 miles. Once I showered, and started getting ready for the wedding (one of the reasons I was home for the weekend), the pain set in. I was in excruciating pain the rest of the evening, and wasn't able to sleep Saturday or Sunday night. I came to realize that laying down was the worst on my back. Things are a bit better now, but I'm still not pain free.

Even with all of the pain, I'm still really happy I did the run, and really proud of how I did. Now I'm starting to wonder if I'll need a 1-2 mile warmup before my next race, since apparently it took me at least that long to get into a good stride...



Splits: (average pace, pace in last 1/2 mile)
0.49: 5:08 (10:29)
1.00: 10:21 (10:21, 10:14) last mile 10:21
1.49: 15:30 (10:24, 10:31)
2.00: 21:03 (10:32, 10:53) last mile 10:42
2.51: 26:21 (10:30, 10:24)
3.00: 31:26 (10:29, 10:22) last mile 10:23
3.50: 36:29 (10:25, 10:06)
4.01: 41:37 (10:23, 10:12) last mile 10:05
4.50: 46:35 (10:21, 10:08)
5.00: 51:43 (10:21, 10:16) last mile 10:12
5.51: 56:26 (10:15, 9:15)
6.00: 1:00:54 (10:09, 9:07) last mile 9:11
6.50: 1:05:42 (10:06, 9:36)
7.00: 1:10:37 (10:05, 9:50) last mile 9:43


Also, I didn't wear the heart rate monitor. That's probably a really good thing, considering how much stress there already was on my back and side. 

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