6.25 Miles Downtown

Gerri was scheduled for an 8 miler today and was meeting her old Team Tiarra running buddies Christina, Drew and Emmitt in GVegas at noon. I wasn't feeling it this morning, but a gentle nudge from Gerri was all it took. In my mind, I knew that I needed, maybe even wanted to get this run in. I haven't run more than 5 miles since the Kiawah Half Marathon in early December, and given my pain/injury I figured 6 miles would be enough.

Running downtown pretty much guarantees hills, and we had plenty today. North Main and McDaniel to name two. I really wanted to go slow, 11:30-11:45 was my goal so that I could finish and feel good. Things didn't work out that way. As much as I wanted to let them go ahead, my mind kept reeling them back in. We ran the 1st three miles or so at an 11:00 pace. Now it wasn't long ago that I would be embarrassed by that info, but I'm just happy to be on the mend and getting some conditioning back.

The last three miles, including McDaniel were run about 11:14 pace. Other than the hill, my ankle felt good. I ran most of McDaniel, with a few short walking breaks, but otherwise I ran the entire distance and actually finished the uphill section of Main Street pretty strong. Although I was tempted to run the entire 8 miles with Gerri and Christina, I knew I was smarter to stick with 6.

So another week in the books with three runs. Mileage still needs to slowly creep up, following the 10% rule. Sadly this was my highest weekly mileage since the 1st week of December. Or maybe I should look at the positive and proudly say this was my highest weekly mileage since December.

Picture borrowed from a great blog post by terrific Greenville athlete, Ashley Long. http://ashleylong.blogspot.com/