I ran 14.5 miles this morning and while it was not pretty, it’s done. The plan was to do two sets of five miles at goal race pace (8:00/mile). The way it actually went down was entirely different however. The journey began with me getting lost on my warm-up. Really, who does that? Then again, it’s not surprising, given my horrendous sense of direction, which has found me in situations like this, this, and this. So instead of a four mile warm up, I did 4.57 miles. My legs felt kind of tired, despite the bonus .57 miles. The first five mile segment was very hard, effort-wise, yet I could not stay on top of the pace. I did my five miles at about an 8:20 pace (the pace is estimated because I haven’t bothered to review the stats on my Garmin, as I just don’t even want to remember this run). I was sure the headwind and the terrain were responsible for my problem maintaining the pace, and I was hopeful that I might run sub 8:00’s on the way back.

The thing was, I picked this route in large part because it is relatively flat and is usually the perfect place for running even splits. I have run this route or variations on it dozens of times. It’s amazing what you can convince yourself of if you are really motivated/creative!  The second five mile segment was worse than the first. I stopped once to pee behind a tree. I stopped a couple of other times just to stop and ponder scrapping the plan entirely. Ultimately I decided that I would stop looking at the Garmin because it was only making me feel bad about myself, and I had no choice but to run as fast as I could, even though it wasn’t fast at all, because of time constraints.

So the second five mile segment was actually only four, then I jogged/shuffled a half mile to get to 14.5, and then walked the rest.  I considered the fact that I didn’t really want to discuss the whole partially giving up thing on my blog, and that almost motivated me to keep running hard, but unfortunately my fatigue was stronger than my drive today. I can’t say why, but I think poor sleep may be a culprit. Since we decided to do the sleep training thing this week, a couple nights in a row, I was awake or half awake for undetermined periods of time, while Sweet Pea cried and I just lied in bed. Up to that point, there were a few nights in a row where I was waking up a couple of times. While I did get my beauty rest last night- a full eight consecutive hours from 10pm to 6am… YAHOO!!!- it didn’t quite make up for the cumulative fatigue of the week.

Now onto a happier topic: BRUNCH!! Dan’s parents watched Sweet Pea this afternoon, which left us free to do the normal stuff we loved to do when we were just two baby-less, fancy-free people. I wore the new dress I got last week (because this was a special occasion), which was an ideal choice for this gorgeous sunny day. We rode our bikes across town at a nice leisurely pace (a perfect long run recovery ride) to this place. I had been there once before, but there were so many menu items I still wanted to try! I admit to having researched the menu more than once earlier this week in anticipation.

Because I couldn’t decide between the chicken and waffles (the chicken was breaded and kind of crispy on the outside and moist on the inside, with a cashew cream sauce!) and the green eggs and ham (a benedict with prosciutto, brie, and pesto… WHAT!?), between me and Dan we split both of those plus his meal, and it was the perfect amount of food. We took our time riding back, including stops at my favorite consignment furniture store and the library. 

Next week is a recovery week, running-wise, which I think I need based on how my run went this morning. The good news is that today I devoted a lot of calories to the refueling aspect of my recovery plan.  And don’t tell me that coffee with Bailey’s, Kahlua, and creme de cacao doesn’t count as recovery calories!