Sunday, December 09, 2007

Monotony and the Wall

My half-marathon training had been going very well up until this weekend. I've been steadily increasing my weekly mileage and was up to 10 miles on my long run last weekend. I was beginning to think that my first marathon might even happen in the next year. Then the running gods put me back in my place.

Friday I set a new personal record for monotonous workouts when I ran 8 miles on the track inside the Student Rec Center on campus. 8 miles is somewhere around 35 laps on this less-than-a-quarter-mile track. My iPod did a wonderful job of keeping my from going insane as I went around and around again. I was still feeling good, if just a tad bored from staring at cinder blocks for almost an hour and a half.

This morning I went out for my long run. 12 miles was the goal. I knew last night when it was still warm and muggy at 10pm that it wasn't going to be fun, but I was not prepared for the miserable consitions this morning. I made it to campus and was running by 5:45am. Even with the early start the heat had wiped me out by mile 6. I made a second loop around campus, but called it quits at 10.5 miles. I had run out of water and didn't think Lidia would appreciate me running myself into the ground since we had a photo sitting at 10am at Sears. Other runners were dropping out and ducking into buildings looking for water fountains as I was packing up as well. It seems that few of us were ready for a September weather workout.

So I've been beaten down and humbled. I'll do my 13.1 in January and not even think about 26.2 again until after I've crossed the finish line.

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2 Comments:

Blogger Shawna Thomas said...

I am utterly amazed that you actually ran that far on a track. I don't have it in me to run in that many circles. :) Kudos to you.

12:41 PM  
Blogger Katie Lady said...

Timmie, you are a Man among Men. I don't think I could get Bubba up that early to go running.

4:54 PM  

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