10 miles, just not all at once

Saturday morning me and my friend did Shape's Diva Dash for a second year in a row. I am thinking this will be the last year. A lot of the obstacles they made even easier. And for a second year I had to miss my daughter's first soccer game of the season. It is just a hard weekend to be busy on a Saturday and not really worth it.

Diva Dash tries to claim it is a 5K, but in reality it is only 2.8 miles. We ran most of the way except a few uphill sections. I was supposed to do 10 miles on Sunday. I carbo-loaded on Saturday expecting to do 10. But as I was going to bed, I was trying to figure out the logistics of the day. I needed to be home by 9:30 and out the door for our town's Soccer Field Day by 10:15. I set my alarm for 5:30, figuring I could run from 6:30 - 8:30, but I had errands I needed to do on the way home from running and the day was already so packed and really didn't allow for me to actually be tired from running 10 miles. So I decided I would run 7.2 miles. So a total of 10 miles between the 2 days and then the 7.2 miles would bring to 275 miles for the year. A nice round number.

Sunrise before my run.

At the beginning of February, once I started running again after taking January off (way too much snow!), I decided to come up with a goal for the year. Thinking I would most likely do a Half Marathon, but not knowing what that meant in terms of mileage, I decided I would like to double my miles in 2014 from 2013 (150 miles). I will hit that goal in the next couple of weeks. Obviously my mileage has not been what I expected for half marathon training since I haven't been running during the week. So I also don't know what to expect for mileage after the 1/2 is over, so who knows what I will get to by the end of 2014. I expect to hit 400 (I better!) but not 500, so it won't be a nice round number like last year.

My run was awesome!!! I love 7 miles. I have been thinking about how much miles I want to maintain after the 1/2 and I am thinking 7 miles is it. 5 miles is not enough because I would love to be 10K ready. Once you get over 8 miles, you might as well go for 10 and I don't want to maintain that number.

I was able to run at a pace I hadn't run in weeks. It wasn't my fasted 7 miles, but I really felt like I was running. Not slogging along.  It was cooler weather, but the humidity was still a little high so my the end of the run I was feeling it.

I think it is finally time to get on the dreaded treadmill. We'll see how I do when I try later this week. I am not looking forward to it, but I need to get used to it again, even if just for 3 miles at a time.