Brilliance

I was chewing on three topics for today's blog in my head during my run. Now, though, I can't remember a single one. Seriously. It seems like going for a run is mentally a bit like those few moments right before you fall asleep, when you have ideas that could change your life, but can't remember a single one the next morning.

So I guess I just get to summarize the run. Drivers in my town still do not move over for runners very frequently, but at least today there wasn't a pickup truck with a wide-load piece of steel rebar waiting to take off my head at 45 MPH like last time. I also discovered that living in a small town can make for difficult runs. In the cardinal directions, I hit the outskirts of town in about 100 yards to the west, half a mile to the north, a mile to the east, and a mile and a half to the south. Combining routes in straight lines, I can get in about two miles before I'm either out of town or skirting the edge. I do like running in the country, but sometimes I do long for the simplicity of poorly traveled city streets or well-traveled city trails.

I'm a day late on my long run, but it was worth the wait. I planned a route that was around 5.91 miles, but I was feeling pretty good towards the end of my run and decided to take a different route home, so I ended up with a grand total of 6.88 miles under my belt today. For the first four and a half to five miles, I felt lighter than air. Seriously. It was as if I didn't even have legs, nor (and this is significant) did I have a toe on the mend. The last bit of the run felt similar in one way: I felt like I didn't have an upper body. Unfortunately, though, it wasn't as if my upper body had disappeared, but more like 180 of my 185 pounds split itself between each of my legs, and the final five pounds took up residence in my broken toe. Needless to say, the last mile was tough. I do know, however, that miles like the last one today will come in handy both mentally and physically on race day, which is right around six weeks away (maybe seven; I lost count with my broken toe).

Crunching the numbers, I ended up with a per mile time right around 12:15. My first three miles were closer to 11:40, so I know I was slowing down in the second half pretty significantly. I'm hoping to figure out a way to get back on some sort of plan by the end of the week. Options are (1) to pick up my old plan and start where I should be and see how it goes, (2) to pick up my old plan and start where I left off and just lose the final three weeks, (3) start a new plan from scratch at six weeks of training.

Not one of those sounds like a good, healthy idea. Super.