With any marathon training program, it's no secret that you need to have one day a week with what is called a "long run". If you relate that to other aspects in life, the long run would be like study for your mid terms in colleges.... or dealing with month end if you work in finance or accounting. It's that long dreadful experience that comes more frequently that you wish it did and you are so glad when it's over. The necessity of this ritual it two fold; it measures where you are and strengthens you to prepare you for where you are headed.
So today I got up for my first real planned "Long Run". I met my friend Amanda who has convinced me that speed walking is the way to go to avoid getting too tired and reduce the chances of injury. We headed to Baldwin park. Immediately my monitor started blinking "low battery" whoops. We got a late start and the sun was blaring hot with no breeze. The path wasn't very treed for most of it so the heat was rough. I wanted to get 8 or so miles in but at the 5.35 mark and knowing to keep going at our pace would mean another 45 minutes in that sun just felt unbearable! So after 1 hour, 24 minutes, we stopped.
We averaged 15:70 pace which if I could sustain for the entire 26 miles, would be acceptable. I finished with a protein shake and a video blog entry.... and a trip out to Ormond Beach later in the afternoon for some relaxation.
On the way home from Ormond Beach, Erik had my GPS. I told him to let me know when we were at 26 miles from home. Once we got to that point I started explaining to him that it would take from that point all the way until we get home to equal a marathon. We talked about how much longer and harder it is to run/walk that to sit in a car and ride. We talked about how to encourage people when things are hard and we continued to talk about why I am running this marathon and how I want to show him that even mommies have to work hard and get past difficult things but that in the end with a lot of practice, I will finish what I started. We talked about how he can apply this to math, soccer, basketball, jobs, school, and anything he wants to do in life! Then I marked the 2.5 mile mark so he could see how long he ran last week with his dad. One of the greatest things about parenting is teaching your child the important lessons that help build him into a successful and contributing member of society.
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