Zombies, Run! Season 2 Mission 9, 4 miles

1:03:18 hours - 4.01 miles - 15:47 min/mile

I was checking my training plan for the Star Wars Half Marathon to see how many miles I would do on my long run each weekend, assuming I followed the Zombies, Run! training plan, and saw that it only trains up to 12 miles before the half. That, plus the fact that it's five days a week, made me decide not to use that plan. So I went back to my Jeff Galloway schedules to see when I'd have to start to use the beginner's half marathon schedule (didn't feel up to doing the speed-increasing one, considering how blah I've been lately), and it turned out I'd already started. Heh. First week would have been last week for three miles, which, coincidentally, is what I ran last week. This week was four miles. So I did four miles this week, and I am officially training for Star Wars in January!

I went to the park to run, got there just before 8 AM. The weather was cool and sunny, just over 50 F when I started out, but warm enough in the sun once I got going. I turned off the zombie chases—I feel like they've been really tiring me out and making it hard to do even the short runs, and I didn't want to risk having a couple of chases right at the beginning using up all my energy. It felt weird not to have to worry about running from the zombies! But nice to just keep up a steady pace for my whole run. I didn't use a run/walk interval, but I did walk for a few minutes at the end of each mile. I don't know if I'll keep doing that for the longer runs or start doing run/walk/run at some point. I'll wait and see how I feel. If I decide to do timed intervals, I'll just use my sport watch, because I want to keep doing the Zombies, Run! missions.

I wore my running belt with water bottle even though it was not that long a run, because I didn't want to take the chance of getting dehydrated and having my blood pressure drop. I made sure to drink at 2 miles. I also took one GU with me and ate it at 3 miles. Going to try to keep up a schedule of drinking water every two miles and eating every three miles.

I felt pretty good and kept up a decent pace. Not my fastest, but under 16 minute miles, so I'm not complaining, especially with how crummy I've been feeling lately. My splits were 14:57, 16:33, 15:06, and 16:11—faster on the downhill miles, but I did slow down overall by more than a minute on the final mile, which was the same lower loop as the first mile.

Turns out I'll have a 6.5 mile run during the week of the Zombies, Run! Virtual Race, which will be perfect for doing the 10K.