The New Lazy
Mmmmmm….
You know how you feel when you wake up from an unexpectedly great afternoon nap? The sunlight is warm on your face, and you arch your back and stretch your arms and legs, and blink really, really slowly? And you just feel amazing?
That’s how I feel today.
As planned. I skipped my Saturday long run in favor of sleeping in and a leisurely neighborhood jog on my own.
Despite not setting my alarm, I jolted awake at 6 am. I couldn’t quite remember what day it was, and whether I needed to get up or not. But after a few moments of panic, I remembered that it was Saturday, the race was Sunday, and I could sleep as long as I liked.
Which, apparently, was until 8 am. Man, I’m getting old. And lame.
Actually, I hate sleeping past 9:30 or so, because then the whole day feels truncated and wasted. So to wake up feeling rested and refreshed at 8 am was perfect. I lazed around, watched some TV, ate a bowl of cereal, and finally managed to get myself dressed and out the door by about 9:45. The weather was sunny and gorgeous, and I had a nice, slow, 5 mile jog.
Then I spent the rest of the day being not exhausted and not sore, running errands and seeing friends. It was like I discovered a whole new day to my weekend. Divine.
The 10K was in Arlington, so Tim and I arranged to meet at his apartment at 7 am that morning. We probably could have met up much later for the 8:30 start, but we weren’t sure how far the course was from his house or whether we’d find parking.
It was a much smaller race than the 5K last week – probably fewer than 400 runners – but there were lots of moms running and families out supporting them, including two of my Team in Training Anchorage buddies. Very cool.
I was kind of nervous about the 10K. I had visions of exhausting myself in the first three or four miles and having to walk at the end. All the talk of the monster hills on the course wasn’t helping.
Worse, Saturday night, I had nightmares ALL NIGHT of the “I’m naked, it’s finals, and I didn’t STUDY!”-variety, except substitute a 10K race for the finals.
I never got those nightmares back when I actually had tests to take. I was plenty cocky, back then, and slept like a rock.
Actually, I think the nightmares may have had something to do with the giant glass of water I drank right before I went to bed. Several of the nightmares included emergency trips to the bathroom. (Note to self: Getting up to pee in the middle of the night sucks, but sleeping fitfully all night sucks more.)
Was that an overshare?
10K Race. Sticking to the point from now on. Promise.
Bizarre nightmares and paranoid delusions aside, in the end, we did fantastically. We ran the first mile faster than we’d intended (about 9:00), and the 4th, very hilly, mile slower (about 10:00). I didn’t feel like I was holding Tim back as much this time, though with a bit of training, I think he could smoke me at this distance as well as he can at the shorter distances.
Around 50 minutes, I started to wish we were done already, but I think that was because we picked up the pace pretty significantly in the last mile or two. We finished in about 56:40, which is a 9:07/mile pace (Tim, I know you used to be a math wiz, but remember: decimal points are not the same as seconds).
So yeah, we pretty much rocked it.
And according this pace predictor, that’s only a hair slower than projected from our 5K time. And my training runs fall right into their suggested pace range as well.
I’ll take my 4:30 marathon, now please. Does that come with fries and a coke?
****
In other news, you may have seen that I will be hosting tomorrow’s Carnival of Runners.
Be very excited.
Also, be sending in your submissions to running /at/ derekrose.com. If you don’t get included tomorrow, you will have no one but yourself to blame.
Laters!
You know how you feel when you wake up from an unexpectedly great afternoon nap? The sunlight is warm on your face, and you arch your back and stretch your arms and legs, and blink really, really slowly? And you just feel amazing?
That’s how I feel today.
As planned. I skipped my Saturday long run in favor of sleeping in and a leisurely neighborhood jog on my own.
Despite not setting my alarm, I jolted awake at 6 am. I couldn’t quite remember what day it was, and whether I needed to get up or not. But after a few moments of panic, I remembered that it was Saturday, the race was Sunday, and I could sleep as long as I liked.
Which, apparently, was until 8 am. Man, I’m getting old. And lame.
Actually, I hate sleeping past 9:30 or so, because then the whole day feels truncated and wasted. So to wake up feeling rested and refreshed at 8 am was perfect. I lazed around, watched some TV, ate a bowl of cereal, and finally managed to get myself dressed and out the door by about 9:45. The weather was sunny and gorgeous, and I had a nice, slow, 5 mile jog.
Then I spent the rest of the day being not exhausted and not sore, running errands and seeing friends. It was like I discovered a whole new day to my weekend. Divine.
The 10K was in Arlington, so Tim and I arranged to meet at his apartment at 7 am that morning. We probably could have met up much later for the 8:30 start, but we weren’t sure how far the course was from his house or whether we’d find parking.
It was a much smaller race than the 5K last week – probably fewer than 400 runners – but there were lots of moms running and families out supporting them, including two of my Team in Training Anchorage buddies. Very cool.
I was kind of nervous about the 10K. I had visions of exhausting myself in the first three or four miles and having to walk at the end. All the talk of the monster hills on the course wasn’t helping.
Worse, Saturday night, I had nightmares ALL NIGHT of the “I’m naked, it’s finals, and I didn’t STUDY!”-variety, except substitute a 10K race for the finals.
I never got those nightmares back when I actually had tests to take. I was plenty cocky, back then, and slept like a rock.
Actually, I think the nightmares may have had something to do with the giant glass of water I drank right before I went to bed. Several of the nightmares included emergency trips to the bathroom. (Note to self: Getting up to pee in the middle of the night sucks, but sleeping fitfully all night sucks more.)
Was that an overshare?
10K Race. Sticking to the point from now on. Promise.
Bizarre nightmares and paranoid delusions aside, in the end, we did fantastically. We ran the first mile faster than we’d intended (about 9:00), and the 4th, very hilly, mile slower (about 10:00). I didn’t feel like I was holding Tim back as much this time, though with a bit of training, I think he could smoke me at this distance as well as he can at the shorter distances.
Around 50 minutes, I started to wish we were done already, but I think that was because we picked up the pace pretty significantly in the last mile or two. We finished in about 56:40, which is a 9:07/mile pace (Tim, I know you used to be a math wiz, but remember: decimal points are not the same as seconds).
So yeah, we pretty much rocked it.
And according this pace predictor, that’s only a hair slower than projected from our 5K time. And my training runs fall right into their suggested pace range as well.
I’ll take my 4:30 marathon, now please. Does that come with fries and a coke?
****
In other news, you may have seen that I will be hosting tomorrow’s Carnival of Runners.
Be very excited.
Also, be sending in your submissions to running /at/ derekrose.com. If you don’t get included tomorrow, you will have no one but yourself to blame.
Laters!
posted by Noames at 1:03 PM
2 Comments:
Sounds like you had a wonderful weekend! Nice job to both you and Tim :-)
Hey...you're gonna be a "carney!" (you know, the guys that work at the carnival??)
That's a terrific 10k time. You've gotten fast really quickly.
I look forward to reading the carnival entry.
Post a Comment
<< Home