14 Miles

Today was another training day for my marathon training.  Just under 75 days to go!  My group, Gotta Run of Katy, met at Luke's Locker in Katy to do our long run for the week at 5:30 am.  Some of our group did 10 miles, others did 12, but the full marathoners did 14 this week.  Lucky me.

I had been sick this week with a sinus infection, turned migraine, turned throwing up from said migraine.  Needless to say that I was feeling sorry for myself on this run that I was still feeling bad.  My run was split in 3 legs, the "I am feeling sorry for myself leg", the "let's get this done so I can get chocolate milk leg", and the "OMG I am so over this run" leg.

The "I am feeling sorry for myself leg" started at mile 1 and ended at mile 7ish.  I was all feeling sorry for myself that I had to do this run when I wasn't feeling very well and sort of light headed.  Mind you, that I didn't have to do this run, I CHOOSE to.  I remember thinking that this marathon was a choice that I made and no one made me sign up, I did that all by myself, and to suck it up.  I had no one to blame for my training but myself so I needed to just keep running.  The faster I ran, the faster I would get it over with.

The "Let's get this done so I can get chocolate milk leg" started at 7ish and ended around 11 miles.  At around 7 miles our coach Alain had followed a group of us in his car because the street we were running on was really dark.  He knew that I wasn't feeling very well so he wanted to make sure I didn't pass out (running with a sinus infection is not fun).  He left us at the end of the dark road once we could see again with the promise of chocolate milk at the end!!!  Chocolate milk seems to be a new favorite of mine lately so that put an extra spring in my step to get me moving faster.  I am like a little kid sometimes. :)  I also took a lemon lime GU  and walked a bit here (I walked a lot from 7-11 miles).  The lemon lime flavor was good, but I just can't get used to the consistency of GU. :/

The "OMG I am so over this run leg" was the last 3 miles of the run. I took some sports beans right at mile 11 and refilled my water bottles in my belt. This section was from 99 to Peak Rd to Cinco Ranch and back to Luke's Locker.  I remember thinking that Peak Rd came really quick from 99 and maybe I was closer than I thought.  Let me tell you, Peak Road to Cinco Ranch from Fry Road took foooooooorever.  The side of the road I was on did not have a sidewalk and I refused to exert the energy needed to cross the road to the sidewalk.  Eventually I did cross because there didn't seem like an end was in sight with the no sidewalk so I crossed.  I saw a church that said something Church at Cinco Ranch.  Me, being the trusting person I am thought, oh good, this is Cinco Ranch, let's turn left.  Then I saw the Katy YMCA and thought I do not remember that on this road, maybe I am further down than I thought on Cinco Ranch.  Then I got to a point where the road did not have a sidewalk.  Hmm, that's weird I thought.  I looked for a street sign and it said Westheimer Parkway. WTH?!!  Where am I?  Apparently the church at Cinco Ranch was not at Cinco Ranch street, it was just put there to confuse me.  I turned left about a 1/2 mile too soon. GRRRRR! 

So since I had been 'so over this run' since the no sidewalk situation on Peak Road I did not want to turn around so I just kept going until I saw 99.  Let me tell you for all you inquisitive people...there are NO SIDEWALKS off of 99 either!  No, you have to either run on the frontage (sp?) road, in the grass/dirt/mud, or get hit by a car.  Those are your choices.  I choose to run in the grass/dirt/mud section because option one and two would have gotten me hit by a car.  I had about 1/2 mile of running on the grass/dirt/mud before I made it to Cinco Ranch.  At one point I did run on the frontage road but the cars were whipping by me so fast I got totally scared (4 feet isn't much when a car is going 60 mph) and settled on the grass/dirt/mud.  By the time I made it to Luke's Locker everyone in my group had left, my socks and shoes were SOAKED, I was beginning to get blisters, and I was covered in grass and mud.  I was SO over this run and so thankful that I made it through alive.  Note to self:  Make sure to check street signs before you randomly turn left.

Luckily Alain, our coach stayed to provide me with my chocolate milk (two cups!) as promised and asked about my run.  He always has to wait for me since I am usually the last or one of the last people to finish.  I did learn that he found my blog once and read some of the posts!  Hi Alain!

All in all it was an off day for running.  Last weekend went so great with the two races I did, but this weekend was not fun. I think I do better at actual races than I do on training runs.  I need to work on fixing that! Next weekend is another 16 miler, but I will be in Dallas so I won't make it to the training session.

14 miles, done and done.