And I Run, I Run So Far Away...

So I didn't set out to do this, but I ended up running nearly five miles this weekend! I know, I can't believe it either. What happened was that I ran on Saturday afternoon with Jeri for close to three miles (30 minutes without stopping - woot!), but I hadn't calibrated my new Nike+ Sportsband, so I knew the mileage wasn't entirely accurate - in fact, it seemed like it was overestimating how far I had run (that's why I'm saying I ran "close" to three miles...it had me over three, and I knew based on the time frame there was no way that was correct). To calibrate it, you have to run a mile, which meant I needed to map out a mile, and the park where we run doesn't have mile markers.

After we were done, I still felt pretty good, and I really wanted to get the thing calibrated. So I drove home and then mapped out a mile in my neighborhood with my car's odometer. Just as I was ready to run it, Jeff came home and decided to ride his bike with Paco the Wonder Dog to keep me company. Off we went. Got my mile in - it took me 13 minutes, which is longer than normal, but hey - at that point I was getting tired. Came home, uploaded the sensor to the Nike website and then made the gigantic error of logging in before clicking on the tiny "i" on that page. At that point, I couldn't make any changes, which I needed to, because it showed that I ran 1.15 miles, when I KNEW it was only a mile. ARGH!!! And then I had to decide to run a mile AGAIN on Sunday, or else wait until Wednesday...and my impatience got the best of me, so Jeff and I drove to the local middle school track (because running on the high school track will get lasers shot at you), only to find it being repaved - yes, on a Sunday (I guess that makes sense to do it when school isn't in session, but geez, universe, what are you trying to tell me?). Back in the car, we drove to the other middle school (this town isn't that big and frankly that was my last option) - hurray, the track was open!

Now, I have seen tracks many times as we have gone to a ton of high school football games, and it's quite possible that I may have even run on one while I attended high school (but that was back in the dark ages and all I remember from my P.E. classes is how hard I worked to get out of them). Let me just say that this track looked really big...and I needed to run around it FOUR times to equal a mile?!? I don't know, somehow it just seemed so much more daunting than running through a park. But, I saddled up and did it. I brought my iPod to listen to music (now that the "shake to shuffle" setting was turned off), but I only ended up listening to two songs - it was weird to not hear myself breathe, and the wire from the earbuds was bouncing around and I was getting distracted, which I did not need when I was trying to get a decent running time in. Cutting to the chase of this very long story, I did my mile and got it uploaded and calibrated successfully - whew! Some observations about my running this weekend:

1. I wasn't hungry for several hours after my Saturday afternoon run - I ate my normal Fage/Kashi/Craisins for breakfast, and a pb&j made with 1 T. of natural peanut butter, 1 t. of jam and an Orowheat Sandwich Thin, along with a small banana for lunch. Ran probably three hours after lunch. I would've thought I'd have been pretty ravenous after running nearly four miles, but no. Wonder if that's normal?
2. My legs felt a little tired on Saturday evening, but overall, they were fine.
3. After my mile run on Sunday, my legs were TIRED. And a little sore.
4. I don't think I should run on consecutive days. It's too disappointing to go from a great run one day to a struggling run the next.
   

The other weird thing that I've noticed is that lately, once I start running, I keep going until I hit the time that I predetermined to run. It's almost like I flip the switch to automatic and just keep on chugging along with a pretty even, albeit slow, pace. I'm hoping that this will carry me through my first 5K, which is coming up!

Depending on how hard Brad works us this week, I would like to go for a run on Wednesday afternoon, and then again on Saturday. I know twice a week isn't much, but with my other workouts I'm having a hard time trying to fit everything in. Which is such a weird thing to write - I still don't recognize myself and what I'm doing sometimes!

I can't end this without wishing a Happy Birthday to my firstborn son, Sam, who turned 23 on Sunday - he's away at college and it's hard to not be with him on his birthday, but I hear he had a fun weekend with his brother and friends.