One Day - Two Runs - A First For Me

Just got back from checking my mail... still no Runner's World magazine. :-(

Anyway, today was a first for me. I did two runs today. Both were quite difficult. When today started I had no intention of running twice. It just happened. Here's how...

My husband has not been running much due to injury. Today we got up early and he asked me if I'd like to join him for an "easy" 3-4 miles. I thought, "Sure! It won't be too difficult. It'll barely be a warm-up and then I'll just keep going to finish my 8-10 miler I had planned for today."

Boy was I in for a surprise. I let Matt set the pace... and soon found our first mile go by in 7:10!!! ACK!! And this was with no warm-up! Not smart! For either of us!

I said, "Hon. You're really running fast." He made some comment about how he has to run that fast for the entire marathon to qualify for Boston. I might have said something about that not being an attainable goal right now. Or maybe I said something about training at your current fitness level, not where you want to be. Whatever the case, I knew I couldn't keep that up for long! About 2.5 miles into it, I had had enough. I told him I was slowing down. He just kept going! He's supposed to be injured! Bad man!

I ended up finishing the 4 miles in about 28:??, I don't remember exactly. The average pace was 7:26. It got recorded as speedwork!

So I still wanted to get in 8-10 miles today. I knew I couldn't do it right after that run. Then my husband came up with the splendid idea of me driving his car to his workplace and running home. That way he could ride his bike to work but still have his car available to drive home and I could get my longer run in. Of course, the run from his work is closer to 10 miles, which would have been 14 total for today if I hadn't decided to walk the final 2 miles for a nice, long, easy, much needed cool-down. I'm still struggling to acclimate to running in temps near 70 degrees. So this run home was quite an effort!

So... one 4 mile "tempo" run + 8 (not so) "easy" miles = 12 total for today