Week 11: Eleven miles

3:00 hours, 30:60 second run/walk ratio

Have had a very exhausting week. I ended up splitting the difference between getting up early enough to avoid the heat of the day and getting up late enough to be completely rested, and got up a little before 7 am and was at Meadowbrook Park ready to run at around 8:35 am. Luckily, the sky was cloudy for most of my run, even dropping a few drops of rain on me. The sun came out in the middle of my 9th mile, so the last few miles had that on top of being "new" miles, but I didn't feel too tired by the time I was done. I expected to run a bit slowly today, and finished in exactly three hours, averaging about 16.4 minutes/mile.

I brought some oyster crackers along with me to nibble on for snacks while I ran. Had a few at 4 miles and a few more at 7.5. My stomach was a bit wonky, but I don't know if it was the crackers or just general wonkiness. I also brought GU but didn't eat any of them. I like the crackers; I'll try them again when I'm not so wiped out and see how I feel.

I stopped once for the bathroom after 3 miles. If I'm not going to stop during the actual Half Marathon, I'll have to get up earlier and watch what I eat the day before. Should probably have dinner early and stop eating after 5 pm. My digestion is kind of sensitive these days. For training runs, it doesn't matter, but it would be good to figure out how to run 3.5 hours without having to stop. That would have added about 7 minutes to my time. Don't even know how available bathrooms will be in Las Vegas.

All in all, not a great run, but not a bad one. And I've made it to eleven miles! At this point, I could run a half marathon if I had to -- only another 2.1 miles. But I've got another month and a half to get stronger.

I skipped my Thursday run this week -- first time I've had to miss a midweek run. Spent all day working on replacing the water heater and fixing the pipe from the pump. Skipping one run won't make a difference, but I've got to be extra diligent not start missing more of them.