January 18, 2009

Coooold Hands.... And Longest Long Run to Date!

16 miles!!!!!!!! Longest long run to date! Yay! It was fantastic! Did it in 2:12! I even got a bit emotional at the end. I always do when I go longer than I've ever gone before. It was almost perfect, but 2 miles of extremely painful frozen hands put a blemish on it. Also, had a tiny bit of indigestion, but fortunately didn't have to make a pit stop. The frozen hand thing was weird. I stopped at my car after the first loop (6 miles) for my GU, Gatorade, tissues and Chapstick. I had everything laid out, so it took me less than 2 minutes to finish my ritual and hit the trail again. I didn't even take my gloves off! But in that time, my fingers started to get very cold and a half mile back into my run, they froze up painfully. How can such a brief stop with gloves still on make such a big difference??? I was planning on stopping again after my second loop, but decided I'd rather get a little fatigued from lack of calories, liquid and/or electrolytes than endure the nearly unbearable ache in my hands again. I finished very strong despite no fuel or liquid during the last 10 miles! Go figure.


Though I've taken a little time off from blogging (was not getting enough sleep!), I have still been running. The temps have dipped into single digits up here in Michigan and windchills have pushed the temps well below zero. Most of the past week's runs have been on the treadmill. I got a few really good workouts on them. I tried one of the treadmill workouts I found on Runner's World - one of the hill workouts. It was only so-so -- didn't quite work me hard enough. I think I'll add another repeat to each set and see how it works next time. I also did a tempo run one day. That was a great workout! And being on a treadmill, I was able to stick to a predetermined pace the entire time. Being fairly new to this sport, I'm still having a hard time with pacing.


Yesterday I earned my Silver Award in the Presidential Champions program! Yay!

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