My Awesome Run

O.K., let me just preface this with the fact that I am SLOW. I'm not going to pussy-foot around the issue. The only way I would ever qualify for Boston would be to keep running (possibly the same pace that I am running at now) until I reach the age where I get AARP discounts.

With that being said, I had an awesome run last night!!! My boys got tickets to go see the Houston Astros so it gave me a rare golden opportunity to go out for a long run during the week. I put in 10 miles on Saturday and cracked out three hills at Waugh and Memorial and then ran the eleven ramp parking garage three times. It was HUMID and nasty. My shoes were making squishy sounds when I finished. So with a day of rest on Sunday (Amen!), I headed back out to Memorial Park to see where my feet would take me on my second long run in under 60 hours.

As I headed out of the park I literally ran into my buddy Geoff who was on his mountain bike. He rode along side of my while I ran and told me all about his race up at the Rhode Island 70.3 race a few weekends ago. It was a great warm up because I kept the pace where I could still talk. After 20 minutes, I had to head along the bayou and Geoff had to turn for home. I had been keeping up on my hydration and it was time for some S-caps. Once down along the run path that follows the bayou, I was rocking it out on the iPod and glancing at the Polar to notice that my pace was faster than normal, but I was feeling really good. I made it into Downtown and crossed over the bridge at Bayou Place and headed back on the other side of the bayou. I stopped briefly at Elenor Tinsley Park for some Pina Colada Shot Blocks and to finish the water in my HEB bottle of water and toss it in the trash.

The sun was setting now and the breeze was picking up. Man it felt nice! I kept to the path and ran up and down the hills and under the stinky Waugh Bat Bridge. Our bridge may not be as famous as the one in Austin, but it smells twice as bad. I crossed over to the other side of the bayou at Shepperd, had some more S-Caps, and ran back up Memorial to Waugh where I had jumped on to the bayou path and started cutting back through the apartments and condos on Jackson Hill and Blossom back to park. On the last little stretch on Crestwood I saw a few bats flitting up near the tree tops. One of my "power songs" came on the iPod (Seal-Amazing[Kaskade Remix]) and I picked it up on the last 800 meters back to the car.

Time-- 1:43:32
Distance--9.62 miles
Expenditure-- 1043 calories
Average Pace--10:46
Average HR--155 bpm
Average % VO2 Max--77%
Average Temperature--91 degrees

The great thing was that I felt AWESOME at the end of the run. I have a track workout tomorrow to work on my Yasso 800's and a 14 mile run on Saturday. I hope that I can get some quality bike time in on Sunday. The summer has been hard with the kid at home and I have 4 weeks left until the Austin Triathlon and 8 weeks left until the Longhorn 70.3 race.

We are back at the Astros game tonight so I better go find something to eat since I am allergic to everything they have at Minute Maid Park except the bottled water.

Later Gators!

Liz