26 December 2014

After a day of feasting at the Triple R [the River Retreat of my BIL (brother-in-law) and SIL (sister-in-law), located on the banks of the Colorado River just a few miles from Matagorda, TX], I woke up late (~08:30), was still stuffed from Christmas night’s supper, and didn’t feel like going for a run. But, two hours later, my wife and her SIL shamed me into running as they laced up and headed out the door, even though they were dodging light, misting, rain showers passing through the area.

So, I, too, put on my running clothes and headed out for my week’s Long Run, a scheduled training run, of 11 miles plus a one mile WU. The weather was not ideal, but not too bad, either; the morning was overcast, misting intermittent rains, 64F, but 100% relative humidity.

Endurance Running – Week 6 of 13 Weeks, Day 4 of 4 Days

During the first several miles, I was occupied with observing neighborhood scenery. But, the neighborhood environment was left behind and was replaced with rural, ranch and farm land; so, I was occupied with watching cattle, sheep, goats, horses, and tilled soil. Soon, eight miles had clicked by and I was at a turn around point to begin retracing most of my route…nine miles, and I, now, became more occupied with keeping my cadence up and my pace slow…and, soon, my Garmin indicated I had completed the 12 miles for my Long Run; but, I was still more than a mile from my starting point. So, of course, I continued running.

I don’t know whether I was bored with the repeated scenery, with the weather, or with the run itself or was just tired; but, after those 12 training miles, I felt like quitting–I’m sure it was mental, rather than physical because I did not seem to have any trouble maintaining the easy (slow) pace.

I ran a total of nearly 35 miles, this week–about 3.5 miles farther than last week’s total mileage (~10% increase). With next week being another holiday week, we’ll have to see whether or not I can get all four runs completed.

Happy Running!