5 Miler

Sunday. Long run day. My plan had been to sit around the house for most of the day and try to get ready for the run, but we decided to spend the afternoon swimming at Kary's aunt's house instead. It's not like I was busting my ass in the pool, though, so I was pretty sure it wouldn't hurt the run. I thought it might actually help me hydrate. My only concern was what to eat during the afternoon to make sure I had the energy for 5 miles. On the way home from swimming, I drove out a course that ended up being a little over 5. It was a little hillier than I wanted, but if I want to run anything over 2 or 3 miles here in town, I've got to live with that.

I started out downtown, and decided to stick with the run 3, walk 2 ratio I used last week. I also decided to stick with walking the first 5 minutes to start warming up, and then moved into a shuffle that probably isn't any faster than my walking pace. I never really seemed to get into a good rythym today, though. Probably the best I felt was about a 15 minute stretch starting around the 25 minute mark. I didn't really feel bad after that, I just never felt good either. My left knee was a little irritating all night, but I figure that it is a rare long run when everything is going to feel great. It just turned into one of those runs where you just have to suck it up and keep putting one foot in front of the other until you are done. I ended up running in 1:21:06, which according to the race calculator, was a 16:13 pace. According to the Galloway plan, the long run is supposed to be about 2 minutes per mile slower than race pace, but I am still a little slower than I need to be right now. I know I need to lose quite a bit of weight before I can really get after it like I need to. I heard somewhere that you take an estimated 49,000 steps during a marathon. I've also heard that each step you take while running is the equivalent of 3 times your body weight hitting the ground. So, if I take 49,000 steps at 245 pounds (where I am now), that is 36,015,000 pounds. If I take those same 49,000 steps at 205 pounds (my goal weight) that would be 30,135,000, for a difference of 5,880,000 pounds. That has to make a difference on how fast I can run, right?

By the way, if you happen to be driving down Walnut Ave. in the next day or two, see if you can find the remains of my left nipple, because it got cheese gratered off somewhere around mile 4 tonight....