It was another good weekend of being sick free and I was able to put in some long miles. Janel went off shopping for new clothes without me because apparently it’s a better experience by herself (her words and mine). I couldn’t manage to convince her otherwise because I’m not that fun of a shopper unless I’m excited about finding a steal at the local thrift shop. (Last week, I found an exercise bike for $12 that I have been thrilled to use as cross training machine). Anyway, that freed up a little bit of Sunday for a good chance to get burnt running some Texas miles. Who doesn’t like that opportunity? ¡Vamos!

I decided with the temperature getting into the 90s, it would be best to bring a cooler to the local park and stick to its shady loops. The UV rays were strong so I donned my bucket hat, took a few swigs of my cheap morning coffee, and made my way to the park. I set aside an hour and a half to run the same quarter mile loop. I sure am fun on the weekend.

I made the decision to track the run on Strava to spot where the mile mark was as well as how many loops in takes to hit a 5k. The mileage per loop is around 0.3 miles so it throws off the easier math my track head is used too. It is funny starting the Strava route on my phone though because my phone GPS is always off for the first 45 seconds. (Shoutout to the iPhone 7 I have, at least it is still working). What that means is that it always thinks my first mile is at 30 minute per mile pace. It makes me think, I wonder what the slowest ever mile is? Like, if you ran the whole time without walking, how slow could you go? Only one foot on the ground at a time. There sure would be a lot of running in place and high knees to go as slow as possible…maybe I’ll attempt this in a later post. Anyway, back to the run!

My body started without its normal aches and I surprisingly felt good. I was happy to report that my knee had stayed in one place despite my heavy cross training on a bike. Often when I cycle, the knee starts feeling kinda loose when returning to running. I had to cross train quite a few times in the past few weeks to reduce shin pain and my knee often feels the repercussions. Luckily, it didn’t wobble much during this run.

There weren’t many people at the park today and I began my run at about 11 a.m. The first mile went smoothly and I tried my best to remind myself to keep a steady pace. The importance of today’s run was to hit the total time rather than fast miles.

I cruised through the first mile and Strava said I hit it in 9:10. It also said I ran through the local church building next to the park. And when I say through it, it means I ran through the walls of the building in a perfectly straight line. And back. I can confirm that this didn’t happen.

There were a handful of other people out at the park this morning and the only other silly people out running were a couple kids. I can confirm that their form was better than mine.

I slowed down into the second mile as the heat began to take its toll. I went through in about 9:30 and this time, I did not run through any walls according to Strava so I think its accuracy went up! Woohoo to technology!

As I plodded along, I came upon mile three and forgot to keep track of the 5k mark. I neared about 30 minutes at this point and took my first water/coffee break. My ice cooler kept the water at least lukewarm which was a nice reprieve from the heat. I had a couple sips of my morning coffee too which gave me a slight pep to the step. The kids had wisely stopped running at this point so I was the lone figure to continue.

I carried on the next couple of miles feeling pretty good and just taking the pace nice and steady. I couldn’t complain about a lovely loop day and miles 3 and 4 were both 9:27. Hurray to pacing! I picked it up a few seconds into mile 5 and was pretty happy coming upon the hour mark.

Passing mile 6 into mile 7 and after hitting the first hour, I began to feel the heat take its toll. There wasn’t anything in particular that felt rough. I was just overall getting tired and my body started to slow down. The heat was pouring down and at this point it seemed wise to refill on water and take another sip of coffee. I hit a 9:44 mile and chugged my second water bottle. At least I was still sweating (you don’t hear that often in Texas) so I knew all systems were still operating. At least, they were operating well enough to combat the heat.

I decided that if I was going to be suffering in the heat, I may as well pick up the pace and try to get in some more mileage. God shown his grace down on me (must have either been the Sunday influence or my Catholic Grandma sending me a blessing from up above) and I got covered by a cloud. I don’t know what I was more grateful for. My running pace to be able to pick up the speed or my skin getting a break from the sun. Either way, I had the first smile on my face to continue running. My atheist relatives would say it was just science to give me the clouds but I was happy for shade either way.

I ran mile eight in 8:54 and followed that up with mile nine at 8:44. That surprised me! Wow, I felt good!

Then the wheels quickly came off. I went from 100% to 1% in the span of 10 seconds. My body completely threw in the towel and I felt all the gas leave my system. No prayer or science reasoning was bringing my speed back to me. The cloud break had left and my body couldn’t be fooled that it was gone. My Grandma was probably busy playing cards with my other deceased relatives at that point or something.

I decided to take a 30 second walk break before trudging along for the final mile. I passed an hour and a half of running but really wanted to hit 10 miles at this point. I chose to maintain my head-down-survival pace and managed to finish up after an hour and 33 minutes of running. Mission success!

I finished the run and just stood there huffing and puffing like I gave the run my all. Honestly, I really had. The only ones around to witness the end of my effort were the squirrels who had no idea why someone would do this. I don’t even have an answer for them but oh well, fun time!

Strava ended up saying I was a local legend of the route. I smiled at this because many people have covered this distance much much faster than any of my splits. I guess I happened to be the most stubborn person to use the app and slog it out in summer time. Shoutout to someone who covered this route at under 6 minute pace, they are the real champ!

Hope you had a fun weekend and you got some good running in. Here are a few of the details from the run posted below. Wishing you all a fantastic start to the week and it’s always a great day to have a great day!