half-marathon training [week 11]

I cannot believe that my half is a week from tomorrow. I'm not at all nervous. Okay, that's a lie. I'm so nervous that I might simultaneously throw up and pee my pants (which, after two kids, is not far outside of the realm of things that now go hand in hand, ahem). I know I've trained for it, but I also know that sometimes I just have inexplicably bad runs and what if this is one? At least I'll be running on a pretty route and I have lunch plans with friends afterward. Heck, even if I have to crawl across the finish line, I'll still have a sense of accomplishment.

This week was weird because I only ran three days instead of four. It was a hard adjustment to go from running three days to four back in January, but I've definitely gotten used to it. After nearly passing out in the heat last week, I decided to avoid the unseasonably high temps (seriously, we had NINE straight days of record breaking temps!) by running before work. I have a love/hate relationship with early morning runs. On one hand, it's quiet and peaceful. It's so nice to have my run done before my day really starts. On the other hand, I am generally a big chicken and totally mistrust people, so I don't really like running alone in the dark. It messes up my pace because there are some DARK areas in my neighborhood, in between street lights, and I end up going way too fast to get to the main road (which is well-lit and heavily trafficked). At any rate, I'd say my Monday and Tuesday early morning runs were successful.

And then I did nothing Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, which was nice in a bizarre way. This morning, I intended on running as soon as it got light out, but I woke up feeling headachy and under the weather, so I stayed in bed until a little after 8. Shane took Tommy and I just kind of stayed in that dreamy, half-asleep state. This rarely happens and to illustrate why it rarely happens, Tommy slipped past Shane, came running in, and jumped on my head, thus ending my rest. I took this as my cue to leave and headed out the door. Today was an 8 mile run and I decided to do hilly country roads as a change of scenery and a bit of a challenge. It was not as flawless as I would've liked. My legs felt weirdly heavy and my hip flexor started acting up, but I finished with a 10:16 pace in spite of how I felt. Could I have done five more miles today? NO WAY.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go spend the next eight days obsessively refreshing weather.com.