Back in the game

Well, I survived the Heart Mini. It was a less than spectacular showing to say the least, but I wasn't too disappointed. I was just glad I finished, mainly because as more than one of the coaches have said "If you can finish the Heart Mini, you can finish the Pig." That makes me very hopeful.

So, last night for our short run, we were supposed to be doing a leisurely 5ish miles through Oakley (it is a little crazy that 5 miles is now our "short" run--the first time I ever ran 5 miles was mid-February and that was for a long run!). It was pretty warm, and my warm weather running gear is minimal, so I had to leave my Droid behind. I figured it wouldn't be a big deal, I could manually enter my workout into Cardio Trainer later, and I figured I could stay with someone who had a Garmin or a watch to do my intervals.

Well, we took off and I just . . .felt like running. So, run I did. I started at the back of the pack because that's where I end up anyway. I ended up being by myself for about half the run, but I could see people in front of me, so I knew what I was supposed to be doing and where I was supposed to be going. When we finished, I asked the girl who finished just in front of me what her time was. She told me 48 minutes. We ran about 4.8 miles. I was dumbfounded. It normally takes me around 56-57 minutes to run 4-4.5 miles. It's called progress. And it's just what I needed to get my head back in the training.

I've hit a wall

I'm hoping I can break through soon. It has to do with my running (or more often than not as of late, my lack thereof). I started the training group in January with my game face on, determined to kick ass. The first couple runs were nightmarish, but once I got in with the right group, things kept looking up, up, up. I was out there in zero degree temperatures, braving the ice and snow, doing my thing. Of course, back then we were running 3, 4, 5 miles at a time.

Now we're entering the big leagues of half marathon training and the weather is actually getting decent (mostly). I'm doing 9.3 (hilly, hellish) miles on Sunday. And I am dreading it. I've been missing my short runs, because something will happen on Tuesday nights, and then I won't want to go on Wednesdays. I'm not a fan of running with the Kentucky group--they're nice, but they are a very small group and fast and I'm always terrified I will get lost. Kind of like what happened when I had to do the Sunday option run this past Sunday. There were no other slow people so I was all by myself, which was fine at first. I had my iPod and my Droid. Then I got to Eden Park, which I've only ran through a couple of times, and never by myself. The route said to just "run through the park (minus the overlook) and exit onto Victory Parkway." Well I exited, but not onto Victory Parkway. In fact, I ended up having to walk up about 50 steps to get up onto Victory Parkway. By then my rhythm was gone. Thank God for my Droid or I'd probably still be wandering around Eden Park. I finished, but I ended up walking quite a bit. It was a crappy run.

I feel like all my longer runs have been crappy. The 10K went fine, but any distance after that has been a nightmare, and that scares me. I was SPENT after that race. I definitely wasn't like hey, let's go run 3 more miles. Then I start beating myself up. I think it's becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point. I'm starting to be all WTF was I thinking. I need to get out of this funk and get re-focused, but I just don't know how.

I'm hoping the Heart Mini isn't a complete freaking disaster, because I'm worried if it is I will be retiring my running shoes.