Long run!

Wednesday and Thursday can only be described as truly disastrous. I had to lie down for an hour in the middle of the day on Wednesday to fend off a sort of queasy headache, and I felt mysteriously terrible all day yesterday too (it is possible that it is a side effect of the dreaded menstruation, something I avoid whenever possible but which creeps up on one occasionally and unavoidably!) - not ill as such, but feeling strongly emotionally distressed and with a sharp but thoroughly irrational sense of malaise! I couldn't get myself out the door for any exercise; in the end I spent the evening thoroughly tidying up and organizing, and went to bed in a slightly better frame of mind.

I had a 1600-word review due today, so I got up pretty early to write it, and it fortunately went fairly smoothly; I sent it to my editor around one, then started to gather myself together to get out for the run.

Even I (cool-weather-lover that I am) cannot quite say that I think it's ideal running weather - but on the other hand, the upside of it being rainy and only in the mid-30s is that the west side path is pleasantly deserted...

So the run went pretty well, I think, though the last half hour still feels harder than it should. (That's my own fault for not having run enough in the last few months!)

The last three runs I've done have been good confidence-builders, all three of them (two interval runs and one long one) have been executed successfully. So I decided that today I wouldn't do walk-run (I was on 10:1 last week), but that I'd strive for a true easy zone 2 run - I have a strong tendency to run too hard, my zone 2 numbers for running are 142-152bpm but I am very commonly even on long runs in the mid-150s.

So I set in at what feels like an unbelievably slow pace, but determined to keep my HR in the mid-140s. The exercise was successful...

2hr., 10.32 mi., avg. pace 11:47/mi., avg. HR 144