Long Run - 14 miles

This weekend was a rough one, run-wise. Late Friday night, Palm released webOS 1.4 for the Pre, which I downloaded shortly after release at 11:30pm. By the time I was finished playing with the phone I went to bed, but that didn't happen until around 2am. Saturday morning, I just didn't want to get out of bed.

I finally got up at 9am, but I was just exhausted the rest of the day, and didn't feel like running at all. In fact, I ended up taking a 2-hour nap in the afternoon, which helped a bit, but I was still tired. I finally got to bed at 10.

This morning, my plan was to run early enough to still make it to church, but when the alarm went off at 5:30, it was pretty obvious I wasn't going to get out of bed. After much consideration, I finally got up at 7.

It was 34 degrees outside! I reluctantly got into my cold weather gear and headed out the door, only to find the gate was open. I didn't think much of it because I expected the dog to be inside the house, so I closed the gate and started running down the street.

About halfway down, there was Honey Bear, in the middle of the road. She jumped to her feet and started running towards me, so I ran back to the house with her and let everyone know what had happened.

By this time it was almost 8am! I needed 3 hours to make sure there was enough buffer for my 14-miler. Church would start at 11, so there wasn't enough time to actually run.

Over the next hour or so, it became obvious the family was feeling about the same way I was. Gregory was coughing, Joy was stuffy, and I was still feeling tired. We mutually decided to stay home from church, and I sat around the rest of the morning. We watched TV for most of the morning, but spent it as a family.

At 1pm I left for my long run, and the weather was wonderful! The temperature was nice, the sky was clear, and there was a nice breeze. During the course of the run, I ran into all sorts of people taking advantage of the nice weather. One homeless person on a bicycle asked for a cigarette, which I found humorous. Another woman I saw on the trail asked, "So you like jogging?"

When I was almost back at my house, I saw something that I don't think I've ever seen before. Like a dog that runs to chase you as you run by his fenced in yard, a chicken did the same thing, behind a fence, as I ran along. Too cute for words!





Splits
Mile 1: 9:35/mi
Mile 2: 10:01/mi
Mile 3: 10:12/mi
Mile 4: 10:54/mi
Mile 5: 11:03/mi
Mile 6: 10:39/mi
Mile 7: 10:40/mi
Mile 8: 12:23/mi
Mile 9: 15:46/mi
Mile 10: 12:46/mi
Mile 11: 11:17/mi
Mile 12: 11:05/mi
Mile 13: 12:18/mi
Mile 14: 13:04/mi

I walked the last .3 miles back home. 14.3 miles, 2:47:55, 11:46/mi average, 1549 calories burned.