Walking for a Cause, and Running because..

Yesterday was the "16th Annual Making Strides against Breast Cancer" 5k walk at Recreation Park in Binghamton NY. My wife, my children and one coworker were there with our pink on to try and do our little part toward a great cause. It was amazing to see 3600 people out there walking on a dreary October day for such a great cause. The attitude was quite festive!

We went home after the walk - and ate left over chinese food (just as good the second day!). I did give it a chance to settle, and than headed out on the run. I had planned on a 15 mile run - figuring if I could do 15 yesterday, I had no worries at all that I was going to be able to pull off the 26.2 on the 30th of the month. Well, that and my buddy did the Wineglass Marathon in the morning, and it was "inspiring" (aka, I was having jealousy issues).

I started the run out, and realized my legs were a little tired. You would think that at this point it would occur to me that I had done a 5k walk that morning - but it didn't. In fact, I didn't think a whole lot about it and just headed out on my planned route. When I started back running after my latest injury - I figured if I could pull 10 this weekend, 15 next weekend and 20 the following weekend - I would be in good shape for, and confident I could complete the MCM. So of course I headed out and planned on doing 15 (not the 10 that I had mentioned.) I mapped out a nice route on mapmyrun.com that worked out to 15 miles - spanning 5 towns/villages.

I headed out of my house - down my usual starting roads of Leroy to Westend to Riverside, and up toward the circle. I knew I was going further than I ever had, so I kept my pace slower than I wanted. It was surprisingly difficult. I had planned on trying to keep it at a 5mph to 5.5mph pace and wasn't able to do so. I did manage to keep it just shy of 6mph. Up and over the bridge to Vestal was nice, I always enjoy seeing the river, although it is still distressingly high. (The water table hasn't gone down from the flooding - which makes every rainstorm a concern.) Due to the massive flooding cleanup still going on in the Twin Orchards area - I decided to take a slight detour to the Vestal Rail Trail in the interest of showing a little bit of respect to those trying to rebuild their lives. I had been meaning to try out the rail trail - it was very pleasant. It is 2 miles one way, flat and well maintained.

I hit the end of the Rail Trail, and headed across the bridge to Endicott. One of the best parts of Endicott (As a runner on Main St.) is the number of gas station/convenience stores. At 8.75 miles, I stopped and bought a Gatorade. I continued down Main St (17C) into Johnson City. At mile 12, my legs were telling me they were done - but at that point I wanted to break the "half marathon" limit and set a new distance record for myself. That last mile hurt and involved some walking, but I did it! I think without the 5k, I could have done the route I had planned.

Mile 1: 10:03
Mile 2: 10:05
Mile 3: 10:30
Mile 4: 10:26
Mile 5: 9:54
Mile 6: 9:50
Mile 7: 9:21
Mile 8: 9:27
Mile 9: 9:42
Mile 10: 9:22
Mile 11: 10:35 (started to slow down here)
Mile 12: 9:34 (no idea why I sped up)
Mile 13: 11:47 (With an internal monologue of OW OW OW OW OW)

My legs are tired today but surprisingly, I am not in agony. In fact, I even passed on the Advil! Today is a "day of rest" - then tomorrow somewhere between 3-5 miles.