A good 10-miler

Saturday, the Houston Fit fall group ran a 10-miler. I remember telling my husband that we were only running 10 miles. I hate it when I phrase it that way. Whenever, I think it's only however many miles, it ends up being a tough run for me. It's like I set myself up for an easy run, but then get my butt kicked by the heat. This happens to me often when it's time to taper off. After running a 21-miler I think, "oh, we're only running 10, 8 or 6"...then I end up feeling like I've just run the longest, toughest run of my life. I made a mental note to not call any run over 5 miles easy anymore.

Our run began at our usual starting point in Memorial Park. We ran down Woodway and turned onto Sage. There's a beautiful church on the corner - St. Martin's Episcopal, I think. Next, we ran to San Felipe and turned left. We followed San Felipe past 610, took a couple of side streets, finally making it to Willowick in the lovely River Oaks. We followed a winding road that took us past Tilman Fertitta's estate (yes, the Tilman Fertitta of Landry's, Joe's Crabshack, etc.). It's great to ooh and ahhh at all the beautiful homes. Whatever it takes to distract the mind from the miles!

The highlight of this run is always making it to the "Rose Garden". This is the 1/2 way point when doing a six miler from the park and a good indication on the 10-mile route that you're almost done! Of course, the water stop that Coach Tom prepared was a welcome sight. Cold water...it was awesome! The last stretch in River Oaks, before heading back to Memorial Drive is on Troon, which is one of my favorite streets. There's a small hill that takes you to a fork in the road. There are trees on each side of the street and on the median which create a cavernous feel and give you a few minutes of relief from the hot sun. Of course, making up the hill to the shade is tough, especially when on the last leg of a LR.

Along the way, I met up with some new faces - Courtney, Bridgett and one more that I forgot (I'm sorry!!!)...I'm terrible with names. It made for some new topics of conversation and since these gals are normally ahead of me on the long runs, I felt like I was pushing myself a little more than usual. The best part is that I didn't stop for one extra walk break. I have this tendency to take a few extra walk breaks on Memorial Dr...especially around the Starbucks. It must be some mental block...I'm usually feeling tired and just say "forget it, I'm walking". This week I felt pretty good. Good enough to keep going and good enough to say that I felt strong the entire run!

Running Stats
Conditions - 80 w/70% humidity
Total run time - 2:03 (1:57 without water stop)
Total distance - 10 miles
Pace - 12:21 (11:45 without water stop)

WW Stats
Lost 1.6 lbs this week!
Total loss since starting HoustonFit ~7.2 lbs