No love.

Check out my route here. My run on Saturday was supposed to be 13 miles. I was really pumped about it too; it would be a day of firsts. It would be the first time I would use gels during my training. It would be the first time I would run 13 miles [practically a half marathon]. It would be the first time that I carried a pace chart [handwritten] while running. It would be the first time I would run through 3 different cities [Birmingham, Homewood, and Mountain Brook]. In the end, it became the first run I've ever sat down on [Seriously. Twice]. It was the first time I've ever stopped in the middle of a run to pee behind a bush. It was the first time [and last] that I've ever run with a lumbar pack. It was the first time I've incorporated walking into my training [Greg swears that walking during running is a good thing - he sent me 8 articles to prove it]. We're mid way's through now; another 13 and we're talking marathon. A few lessons learned will benefit a long way. If you've kept up with the blog, you may have noticed that in place of the last 6 scheduled runs, I've actually only run 4. All the little wrong decision along the way work to break the machine altogether - I didn't build my base up enough to run in a healthy fashion this past weekend. The second lesson comes in the form of choosing routes. I usually "map my run," before I actually run them - that way I know how far I'm running and what turns to take. If you drive the route I've mapped this time around, you might notice that you're driving on some of the worst hills in Birmingham [i.e. Greensprings, Pawnee, and Cliff Rd - Cliff named because it's high...on a cliff]. My quads are still hurting worse than they do during Buda's summer league...and that's quite an astonishment. So, I'm not quitting. I'm learning. I'm hoping that tonight's run will be better. But all in all, I'd rather be running.