Half Marathon Training 10K

With out fail while I am on a long run I wish I had been training!!  Again no one to blame but me and I own that. But man could I feel the lack of training in my body.  We went to a track at a Middle School close to my house. Both BFF & I REALLY did NOT want to run.

This is us SO sad that we have to run a 10K.

It was cold and I haven't ran since last weekends 3 miles.  Like I said BFF is doing SO great on her training, super proud BFF here!! She has not missed a day of training, me not so much. I've ran the 4 miles w/ her, then one 30 min weekday run, and a 3 mile weekend and thats it! 3 times this month when I should have been running 3 times a week. (again not looking for pity just stating facts) This 10K is only my 4th run of the month and it felt a little intimidating.  I know I had done it before so that helped but I felt way more out of practice and even less prepared than the last 10K. Last time we'd been running 5K's all summer, at least one a month. That 10K was one of my proudest moments of my running last year and the longest I had ever run at one time. This year a 5K is the short run weekends. O_O It seems a little crazy to me.  We knew we needed to get this done so off we went.

The track is nice because we can both keep our own pace and yet still kind of be together. I took off after BFF, her pace is much faster than mine, and once around the track thinking great already done with 1 of 24 laps.  Half way around the second time I had to stop and walk. My right shin was killing me. I pushed and try to run walk the first mile and managed to barely squeak out a 16:30 pace which is the SLOWEST you can do the Tinkerbell in w/o being picked up by the fail bus. The rest of the run didn't go so well. My brain started coming up with reasons to validate me not completing the full 10K today. I hadn't been training, If I run until BFF is done they I will have more than I have this month all together, I am in real pain and I am limping around this track, but I kept going. I ended up walking most of it. Mile 2 & 3 were in the 18 & 19 min paces.  At around mile 3 1/2 is when I finally feel like I am good to go.  I don't know if it is runners high that kicks in at that point for me or if it truly takes me 3 miles to warm up.  This is the point where I decided I needed to get this run going because BFF is now 4 laps ahead of me. My shin still hurt but seemed to be more bearable maybe it was adrenaline. I could no longer see BFF on the other side of the track because the fog had come in.

This pic was taken by BFF and I am in that fog somewhere

I have always been a pretty good sprinter because I knew I was going to stop in just a short while I could go all out. I thought well I do not have the endurance to run the whole time or even a quarter of a mile right now. So I thought what the hey, I will sprint on the strait aways and walk the ends of the track. So I did I felt like I was making progress and still able to walk then I was ready to run again at the next straight away.  Doing this I got miles 4, 5 & 6 at a 17 min pace. Still slow but better than the last couple miles.  I tried to look at my Garmin to see what my sprint pace was. When I uploaded it when I got home. I was floored!!!  Here are my stats for the run:

1:49:14 Moving Time 17:37 min/mi Avg Moving Pace  4:20 min/mi Best Pace

O_O  WHAT?!?!?! In the horrible shape I am in my fastest sprint pace was 4:20 that is 13.8 mph. That pace would get me done with my half marathon in less than an hour.  Granted I know that isn't going to happen but WTHeck!! I had no idea I could move that fast!! Granted this is only for seconds at a time but still, CRAZINESS!  BFF finished in 1:20 and I was about a half hour behind her.  I am proud that we went out and ran even though we both really didn't want to.

Our we finished selfie

As promised a review of the anti-chafing stuff I decided to try for this run to prevent my problem from my previous Blog post. So I tired my hubby's "chamois butt'r" he uses for his bike rides. And it worked great. With that I had NO issues like I have for any other run longer than 3 miles.  So YAY for Chamois Butt'r!!!!!  Today is Feb 1st and I am determined not to miss a day of training from today forward!!!