A Distance PR

... that I wasn't so sure was going to happen.

This week, the second worst fear a runner-in-training could have happened: I got sick.

At first, I thought it was just allergies: sinus congestion and runny nose. Then, Wednesday morning, I woke up to a sore throat and Thursday it progressed to coughing. If it hadn't been one of the 4 busiest weeks of the year at my job, I would have stayed home sick from work - that just tells you how awful I felt. My co-workers were surprised I made it in - that tells you how awful I sounded.

I ended up skipping my easy run this week to opt for the extra time for rest, and I sure needed it. Saturday morning, I had planned to attempt the scheduled 14 with a friend who was visiting from Minnesota, but we both accidentally set our phone alarms incorrectly and didn't wake up until 9.

Ooops.

We decided it just meant we needed the rest.

So when this morning rolled around, I knew I had been feeling much better - thank goodness the brunt of the virus only lasted about 48 hours. I still wasn't 100%, but figured I had to at least try for the 14. If I got 10 or more under my belt, I would consider that a good long run.

I started out with my usual super slow first mile, and saw that the first 3 miles ended up being at warm up pace. I told myself, that's okay, because, hey, I felt really awful just a few days ago. The pace slowly got a little faster, but I was still under my usual long run pace.

I decided to turn around on the out and back a little early, just in case I didn't feel up to the 14. I knew that getting to 7 would be no problem, but didn't know how I would feel at mile 12, for instance, so it would be best to give myself a little leeway. If I felt up to it, there was a little loop on the trail I could use to add the extra mileage.

About mile 8, I was glad I turned around at 5.5 miles. I just felt awful. Terrible. I wanted to stop. But, I kept plugging along, thinking, well, I'll at least get 11 in. That's pretty good.

Suddenly, around mile 10 I felt tons better. So, I made the decision at that point to go for 14. It wouldn't be easy, but I was pretty sure I could do it. I passed my usual turn off on the trail and went for the extra loop.

Turns out, the extra loop wasn't quite as long as I thought it was, so in order to get the 14, I did a lot of back and forth on a stretch of another trail that my car was parked by. I passed my car 3 times in order to get to 13.93 before calling it good enough.

That last stretch of going back and forth was the worst! Ugh, I couldn't believe how awful it was. I will never plan that poorly again. But, hopefully I'll never feel under the weather again when I need to get in a long run so I won't have to worry about it.

Ended up with a insanely slow 13:40 pace. Oh well.

On the bright side, I tried Honey Stinger Pomegranate gels on this run. I actually said "Yum!" out loud while I was eating it.