10 Miles of Fun

Bill is out of town this weekend so he can witness the last game at Yankee Stadium (good riddance!), so it was just Barry and I running this weekend. We talked about what distance we would do during the week. He wanted to do 15 miles like he had the previous weekend. I wanted to keep the mileage down a little since I skipped my long run last weekend. I wanted to increase the pace, though, hoping to do between an 8:30 and 9:00 pace. We settled on a 10-miler on the Bridle Path and Canal, turning around at 12th St. As we were about to start the run at 6AM (which meant I got to "sleep in"), I realized that my iPod Shuffle wasn't working. Gaaaack! Barry loaned me his and he used his Nano. I listened to what sounded like a bootleg of the Led Zeppelin Knebworth 1979 concert. I also realized that it felt hotter and more humid than it had the previous week. Bummer! We started off pretty strong. Barry usually ends up pulling ahead right away, but I actually lead the way for a while this time. We did the first 2 miles at an 8:30-ish pace. As we continued up the Bridle Path, I could tell that it might have been a mistake for me to push that kind of pace. The heat was starting to bother me a little. Dammit! I can't wait for it to be 47 instead of 87. I still managed to do the next few miles at about a 9:00 pace, so I was still feeling good about making my goal. We reached the turnaround at 12th St. and picked up the water and Gatorade I left. After a short rest we set out on the return leg. I felt good for the first mile, and we were still on a sub-9:00 pace. As we reached the end of the canal and turned back onto Central, the sun was fully up and the heat was starting to get to me. I slowed to a 9:20-ish pace for the next mile, even taking a short walk break as we crossed Northern Ave. Shortly after Northern, I ran over some jerk's dog. He was walking in the same direction we were running, and the owner wasn't controlling his animal. The dog was distracted by another dog and ran right in front of me. I couldn't stop in time and ran right over it. Thankfully neither of us was hurt. My pace for the rest of the run was much slower. I told Barry to go on ahead because I just wasn't feeling like an 8:00 pace. I ran part of the rest of the run with a woman who was going the same speed. I took a few short walk breaks where the Bridle Path crossed big streets. Even though my pace was much slower, I was in great spirits. My mind was in a good place here, totally accepting that today was just a little too warm for me to run at the pace I wanted and having fun at the pace I could run. I'm just not built for running when it's hot, and it's much better to accept that than to get down about it. I finished in about 1:34, which was 5 minutes faster than the last time we did this distance. My overall pace of 9:15 was slower than I wanted, but the run was still fun. Managing to have fun on a day when my performance didn't meet my pre-run goal was great. My legs felts fantastic after the run, bareley even registering that they had just run 10 miles. When is this heat finally going to break...? Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 1201 ft Location: Phoenix, AZ Elev. Gain: +0 ft Date: 09/20/08 Up/Downhill: [+134/-134] Time: 07:18 AM Difficulty: 3.2 / 5.0 Weather: Partly Cloudy 87 F temp; 33% humidity 85 F heat index; winds E 7 Performance Distance: 10.19 miles Time: 1:34:18 Speed: 6.5 mph Pace: 9' 15 /mi Calories: 1582 Map Elevation (ft) Pace (min/mile) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 8' 34 -0' 41 7.0 +0.5 +19 ft 2 8' 33 -0' 42 7.0 +0.5 +26 ft 3 9' 05 -0' 10 6.6 +0.1 +29 ft 4 9' 07 -0' 08 6.6 +0.1 +20 ft 5 9' 23 +0' 08 6.4 -0.1 +3 ft 6 14' 17 +5' 02 4.2 -2.3 -3 ft 7 9' 22 +0' 07 6.4 -0.1 -3 ft 8 9' 44 +0' 29 6.2 -0.3 -36 ft 9 10' 26 +1' 11 5.8 -0.7 -22 ft 10 10' 14 +0' 59 5.9 -0.6 -29 ft end 9' 02 -0' 13 6.6 +0.1 -3 ft Versus average of 9' 15 min/mile

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