over the hump

On Sunday morning, my alarm went off at 7:30 a.m. This was supposed to give me plenty of time to get up, get dressed, have something to fuel me, and then get myself to Westboro for my first ever 7k run.

Instead, I looked at the alarm, and in my groggy state, tried to quickly calculate how far I could push that snooze button. I did NOT want to get out of bed. Not while the rest of the family still slept peacefully and especially since I had been the first to be awake the day before too. I wanted to be able to be in bed, warm and cozy and lazy. It didn't help that when I checked to forecast before going to bed the night before the weather "experts" were calling for ice over night and rain through the day.

So, I hit snooze for another 10 minutes and rolled over.

But, after 10 more minutes of blissful relaxation, I dragged myself out of bed and pulled on the running gear I had placed out in preparation the night before. I got myself downstairs, grabbed a cereal bar and an apple and filled my water bottle. I was NOT going to bail.

I arrived at the running room and was welcomed by my LIO running friend Robin who, after being out until 1 a.m. that morning, did not bail on meeting me (check #2 on thank goodness I still went!!!!).

We staid at the back of the pack, but ran well. Robin, who is a significantly faster runner than I, was nice enough to stick with my pace - something that kept me motivated to not skimp out of those 10:1 intervals. Just after the 3.5km turnaround, we had to run up our first hill. I LOATHE hills, but now have a trick which Robin taught me. DON'T LOOK PAST A COUPLE FEET IN FRONT OF YOURSELF WHEN GOING UP A HILL. I think that my history of riding horses has always had be looking further ahead to (what would be) the next "jump" (or block, as it would be during a run); which, in the case of hills, is usually at the top of the hill. When I tried it her way, I found the hill much more manageable. It kinda tricks your brain into not knowing how long or steep the hill is and so it makes it feel less *hard*. This is something I will be utilizing a LOT in the coming weeks... especially with our program starts to integrate hills on Wednesdays next week!

Coming up to what I assume would be around the 5k mark, I allowed myself to look at my phone to see how I was doing with time. At this point, Robin, god bless her, had made some sort of comment about me being fast and doing great (ppptttthhh - thanks, but... ummm, no ;-) ). At around the 5k mark (I think), we were at just over 36 minutes. YAY!!!!!

At about 6k, I was really tired. My legs were feeling really sore but I was determined to finish. I had officially gone further than ever and I had nowhere to go but back to my truck anyways ;-) Just as we arrived at Churchill, we were due for another walk break but we decided to run through it because the end was in reach.

We ended strong and with smiles on our faces. I can honestly say, Robin's support and patience made all the difference!

We ended the 7k run in just over 54 minutes! Robin also filled me in on the stats of each km after the run (man - I still so would like a Garmin!): our average pace was 7:46/km including walk breaks, and our fastest kms (1 and 4) were 7:13/km! Also, our LAST km was faster than both 5 and 6... so we finished strong.

I also noticed that we finished our 7k just before the "faster" runners finished their 8k (which, for some reason, made me proud?!?)

So, I being this new week looking back at the things I accomplished in my running last week:

1) I ran a total distance of 21 km last week (over 4 runs) - that's a half marathon's distance!!!!!
2) I ran my longest distance
3) I ran my longest time
4) I am officially further along in this 10k program then I was last fall when I had to stop due to injury.

This week's challenge - 8k! :)