Yesterday's 9-miler was postponed to today for really no good reason except I was being lazy. I'll admit I was a little worried about this run since I haven't really tried to run for more than an hour at a time in pretty much forever. And as a diabetic, I really have to be concerned about my blood sugar levels during exercise, especially on long(er) runs. I carry my glucose tablets on every run and thankfully have not had to use them yet.
It's also a little concerning since I usually run at night, and even though I run on moderately trafficked roads, there's always that fear that my blood sugar is going to drop and I'm going to pass out in a ditch or something.
All that being said, I went for my run anyway! I wasn't really shooting for any specific pace, I just wanted to finish, so I tried to keep things slow. Things felt pretty good until about mile 2 when my left Achilles/calf started bothering me. This has happened before and I know that if I keep running, it usually loosens up and the pain goes away.
Then at around mile 3 I started feeling weird, almost light-headed. I considered stopping, or cutting my run short, but instead decided to pop in to Rite-Aid for a Gatorade G2 and a Soy Joy bar. I downed the Soy Joy and about half the Gatorade and continued on my route. That seemed to do the trick, as I felt much better over the last 2/3 of the run.
Once I finished, I was pretty happy to see my time (1:24:06) which works out to a 9:38 on the Nike+ (9:12 when adjusted for the incorrect distance reported by the Nike+). It's funny that 9:12 is exactly what I would need to run a half-marathon in 2 hours. Not that I'm planning on running a half-marathon anytime soon, but still.
Even more impressive were my splits.
| Mile 1 |
9:36 |
| Mile 2 |
9:37 |
| Mile 3 |
9:30 |
| Mile 4 |
10:18* |
| Mile 5 |
9:44 |
| Mile 6 |
9:27 |
| Mile 7 |
9:37 |
| Mile 8 |
9:26 |
| The last bit |
9:23 |
Pretty sweet, especially considering I wasn't really paying much attention to my time or pace during the run. Oh, and that 10+ mile in Mile 4 was the part where I walked for a little bit while I had my Gatorade.
Right towards the end my legs started feeling really dead, and my knees were starting to get a little sore. Nothing major, and I probably could've continued for a couple more miles, but I didn't want to get too crazy and injure something, so I stopped.
It felt good to get this run under my belt! Maybe I'll do a half-marathon after all!
