I had NO sleep last night...maybe not 'no' sleep, but very little.... with lots of interruptions :( Lilah's been a little under the weather, so my night went as following:
10:45 - Sleep (we had company until 10:40)
11:30 - 12:30 - Lilah up, gave her Tylenol, eventually pull her into bed with me
1:45 - Lawrence finally comes to bed
2:30 - Finally bring Lilah back to her own bed b/c 3 in the bed wasn't working!
3:30 - Ari up b/c the cat woke him up
4am - Ari finally back to sleep after a prolonged fight about another glass of milk(which I lost).
4:30 - Lilah back up, give her another dose of Tylenol and wait for it to take effect
5:30 - Finally back in bed
7am - Up for the day :(
I had been a little nervous about today's run because I had missed 3 of my runs over the last 2 weeks and today was another new distance for mileage. However, once I realized how tired I was, I became VERY nervous. However, consider I had already missed 3 runs in the last 2 weeks I couldn't skip out on my long run.
Once again, I decided to follow Marie's advice and focus on the distance rather than push myself for time, so before actually running out the door I chugged a cup of coffee to help me with my energy levels for the new distance. Surprisingly enough, once I really got started I actually started feeling pretty good with some nice energy! It was a beautiful day with the sun shining and a sky of blue. I wore only some capris, a synthetic t-shirt and took off to some good music :)
I took the hills nicely and really had no troubles for most of the run. Around mile 3 my legs started feeling a little tired, but I didn't feel any need to stop. Some Weezer and Cake did wonders for my temperment :) Around mile 4.5 my hips started hurting which made me a little nervous. I haven't really had any hip pain on my runs before and since it was in both hips rather than one, I think it's more of an issue of forgetting to stretch and being very tired. Hopefully I'll get better sleep in the future and start remembering to stretch beforehand!
I also think it may be time to start experimenting with gel packs and sport drinks on my runs. If anyone has any tips about which ones to try and how to do it, it would be much appreciated!
Finally, I came back to my neighborhood with only 1/10 of a mile left and something a big scary happened. When I was approaching the street to enter my neighborhood, I noticed a man standing on the opposite side of the street I was running down. He had greasy looking hair, scraggly beard, shorts, and an old track suit jacket on. Immediately he struck me as a guy I wanted to stay away from me, but as soon as he saw me, he crossed over to my side of the street and started walking towards my direction. As I approached, he slowed down as if he was waiting for me... which made me even more nervous :( I was cautious on my approach and slowed a bit to see what he was going to do. As soon as I was within a few feet of him, he started talking to me.... I have no idea what he said b/c all the 'red flags' in my head were going off! I just yelled, "Sorry I can't hear you" and took off as fast as I could around the corner until he was out of sight. It was a good reminder that running alone as a woman can make me into a target and it's essential to keep my guard up at all times.
My end result was 5.5 miles in 56:43 which comes out to 10:22 min/mile pace... which is a-ok with me :)
It's now about 6 hours after my run finished and I have to admit my legs are a teensy bit sore. I could be because of the tired or lack of pre-stretching, but I'm guessing it's because of the slacking off of my runs over the last few weeks. Now that I'm going to start my second week of the new job and I'm feeling a little more comfortable, I'm going to do a better job of sticking to the training schedule!
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