Misc....

First, congrats to everyone who ran their 21-miler yesterday! You are done...let the taper begin!!!

I ran 8 miles with the Houston Fit 5/1 Red Group. The weather was perfect!!! It felt good to be out there with my peeps again. While I felt pretty strong most of the way, I did feel like I was running a bit slower than normal. We ran the River Oaks/Rose Garden run. All was well until somewhere between mile 5 & 6 when I started feeling tired and my ITB started up. I was beginning to get disgusted with myself and my lack of training over the past 3 weeks...it was showing and I was starting to fall back from the group. By the time we made it to the Starbucks on Memorial, I suddenly got my 2nd wind. There was a grey headed lady that passed me up...I swear she was probably twice my age. I decided then, that I was not going to let her beat me back to the park...it was time to suck it up and run faster! I don't know where that came from, but I joked later with Kay that her competitive spirit must have rubbed off on me. :-)

I ran the remainder of the run feeling strong. I am surprised how quickly my level of fitness has decreased since Chicago. It makes me wonder how strong my 1/2 marathon will be next month. I am just going to really need to stick to the training schedule over the next few weeks to at least maintain where I am now. Next week, I'll be running 10 miles with Houston Fit, so I'll have a better idea of where I stand after that.

Running Stats
Conditions - 45 degrees
Total run time - 1:38? (Forgot my watch, this was someone else's time)
Total Distance - 8 miles
Pace - 12:15 (yikes, slow!)