The agony and ecstacy

Sunday I had to get in a long run. I theory, it was supposed to be 7 miles according to the training log. I was supposed to meet with my prospective trainer that afternoon in Coppell, where my gym is, and thought about just doing my mileage there after we were finished. I mapped out a run and thought it would be fine.

I met with Alma, the trainer, and had a great time. We talked and I was able to pick her brain on training and tri tips (not the beef, but the race). She even printed out elevation and maps for my Kansas race to discuss. I like her!

Anyway, after we met, I headed out to chase sunset, thinking I'd get my 7-ish miles and/or 7 minutes in before the sun went down. As I started out on the route I'd mapped out, I realized that the Andy Brown park which I was running near, had just over a 6 mile loop beckoning me to run to keep it from getting boring. Sure enough, I succumbed to the whole thing, and added with the mileage to get from the YMCA to the park entrance, it ended up coming to 8.5 miles! WTF!!??

The legs (and side stitches) balked at me at first, like they always do the first mile or two, but then I got into a groove. I kept going, but told myself that I'd do a 1 minute walk once I got to the far duck pond or 35 minutes, whichever came first. Fortunately, I didn't have to choose, as they came at about the same time. I decided to suck down a gel, walk for a minute, then keep going.

It was a great move looking back. The gel kicked in about 10 minutes later and carried me through to the end. I thought I'd end up walking maybe the last 1/2 mile or so, but kept carrying on until I made it back to the car 85 minutes later! Holy crap! For someone not training well this was awesome!

But I paid for it on Monday.

Damn I'm sore. To top it off, I did my first upper body workout with Alma on Tuesday and she pushed me to do weights I certainly wouldn't have done on my own. I'm learning from her and think she'll be great to develop the core muscles I'll need to help set the base for when I start really training in January.

Oh and I'm cussing her name today. I'm so sore, typing hurts right now. Everything from the waist up hurts. It's a good hurt though. It's the agony and the ecstasy all rolled into one.