A Good Run is a Bad Run?

Saturday morning I met up at the bike path with Felice, Jenny, and Lois for a long run.  We were joined by Jenny and Lois' friend Sue and my friend Caroline who brought along her friend Janet.  We were going to do 14 miles and had picked the bike path because it's flat.  I know that I personally needed flat run this week as most of my running has been on hills lately and Jenny and I had done 9 miles the day before below marathon pace.  Running-wise it had been a tough but good week for me, I had tackled my first track workout and had run 22 miles by the time Saturday rolled around.  I was tired.

Anyway we hit the path and started running.  The first 8 miles felt good.  We were running about a 9:30 pace and that's when the fatigue started to hit me, my quads felt tired and my legs in general felt tired.  I was able to hang on though and kept up with Felice and Sue.  At mile 10 I made a huge mistake I let myself walk.  It was all downhill from there. Once I started walking I couldn't get going again.  The last 4 miles were a lot of walking and a little running. While I don't normally have a problem stopping to walk if I need it, this particular day I know if I had just kept going I would have finished the run feeling better than I did.  I think I need to work on my mental toughness.  Overall my pace was 10:03 which really isn't bad considering all of the walking I did.  I would normally be happy with that pace if I didn't feel like I had given up at mile 10.  I know I could have pushed myself and that's what bothered me in the end. 

Even though I didn't feel great physically on my run, I did feel great when I finished.  I felt proud and happy to be out there with such amazing women.  Sue, who I just met that day, is 64 years old and a breast cancer survivor.  She didn't start running until she was in her 50's after battling breast cancer and she is super fast. I think she said she has run a 3:20 or 3:30 marathon and she qualifies for Boston every year! Anyway, it was hard to be down after running with someone like her. 

Plus, I feel like I learned a few lessons from that run. This week I will not be doing such a fast run the day before my long run and I'm going to work on pacing myself better on this week’s long run.  It's all part of the training!