I wasn't sure how my body was going to feel about running ten miles today. My legs don't seem to fully recover from the strength training (which is pretty quad, hamstring and glute heavy) throughout the week, but I did have yesterday off thanks to rain and wind. We started in reverse, hoping to have a straightaway at the end rather than having to loop through the neighborhood when I'm running out of gas. Despite the looping, we started off strong. I felt pretty good. Every time I checked our pace, it was around 8:35. When I felt like I was struggling, I was at 9:35.
Maybe we started out too strong in the beginning. I didn't feel like I was pushing too much at all, but I started to feel it a lot more in mile four. I spent most of mile five wondering when ten miles was going to feel easy or at least easy-er. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to do it. We settled into a steady pace of 10:35. Endurance doesn't ever feel like my problem. I just struggle with forward motion. Luckily, I have a Henri to help with that. I admit, he was pulling me at points.
Once I got past mile six, I was feeling better. This is the opposite of every time I've run ten miles in the past. Once I could tell myself we only had 5k left, I was feeling much better. My reverse plan was working...until we were down to a mile and half. We ran out of straightaway. We had to keep turning, which always throws Henri off. We still managed to cut seconds off our time and even with slowing down, we managed to keep every mile under 11 minutes.
So, I guess the answer to my question as to when our ten mile run would get easier might be now. I mean, at least the last four miles were easier and better and that makes the run feel so much better. Now, if I can just get my route figured out...
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