Lucky 7

I successfully completed my first long training run for the marathon!

Woo-hoo!

Thanks to Molly Laufer for checking in on me and asking how it had gone. I waited until Sunday evening to attempt this run because the weather forecast indicated that the weather would be most conducive to running during this time.

Luckily I received my Garmin 305 in the mail yesterday afternoon and was able to fiddle around with it and figure out how to use it before the run today. Also luckily, Jeremy agreed to do part of the run with me. I ran the 2 miles to his house and then he came out with me for the next 3.5 miles. I dropped him back at his house and completed the last 1.5 miles back to my apartment alone (I had sort of run out of my way to get to his house on the way there in order to extend the distance). Having Jeremy with me for those middle miles was a HUGE help. It distracted me from the distance that I was facing and allowed me to break the run into smaller segments.

Having the Garmin really opened my eyes to how inconsistently I run! My pace was ALL OVER THE PLACE! Especially the first two miles prior to picking Jeremy up - I went out way too fast. I kept checking the watch and noticing that I was going too quickly but I had a hard time slowing down consistently. Don't worry - the miles eventually slowed me down and I finished the run just about on pace. The middle miles I ran with Jeremy were faster than I wanted them to be but he was slowing himself down for me so I was trying to keep up and meet him in the middle pace-wise. We stopped running to walk a few times. I had the Garmin set to automatically pause every time I STOPPED, but I think from now on I'll have it stop when I drop below a certain pace (and it's clear that I'm walking i/o running) because the setting it was on this time meant that my average pace per mile was 11:44, which I know is just significantly slowed down due to the segments that we walked.

I'm not really good at reading the Garmin information that was loaded onto my computer yet...but I'm hoping that over time I can learn to understand it better.

When I got home I was starving - it was about 8 pm - and I still needed to go to the grocery store to shop for dinner ingredients. I walked Mugsy, ran over to Whole Foods (it's 2 blocks away, love), and got some ingredients.

When I got back from WF I threw back a glass of chocolate milk (the fact that this is an awesome recovery drink is a huge bonus in my book) and showered quickly before making dinner. This is what I ate:

I know, I know. It looks DELICIOUS, right? Not at all, looks like vomit. Anyway, it's 1 whole tomato, 1/2 an avocado, about a cup of plain quinoa (thanks to the Whole Foods salad bar I didn't have to cook it myself which is the Yay), a few pieces of marinated mozzarella, and I'd guess 1/2 cup of plain chickpeas. I think it was full of protein and good fats (and some bad fats, whatevs), and the tomato would help re-hydrate me after my long run. I felt good eating it, at least! But lesson TOTALLY learned - in the future, make sure you've planned for dinner before heading out on your long run! In case there was any doubt - my motivation to train for this marathon comes 50% from the fact that I will be able to eat WAY MORE. I LOVE FOOD.

FOOD.

LOVE.

OK so I'm totally being verbose right now, maybe it's a post-run high, but all in all:

• I'm totally proud that I finished 7 miles tonight and did it without feeling bad at all during the run
• Having Jeremy with me for half of the run was a HUGE HELP and I hope I can bribe him to continue running with me
• Chocolate milk is The Awesome
• I need to hydrate better next time
• My right quad is The Pissed. I need to roll/ice it now.
• Garmin = also The Awesome

OK BYE THANKS FOR READING! :-D