Pace run

Leah has already posted about our nifty new T-Shirts, which turned out brilliantly, but what about today's run?

Well, we were due for a 4 miles pace run and so we left from our apartment and went under the newly re-opened underpass at Addison so that we could run along the lakefront as long as possible. Then it was just 1.5 miles out and back. Not too bad, right?

Well, apparently my "pace" is a bit slower than hers. Everything was going just fine for the first half. After the first mile, she noted that we were at 8:36 and so we were doing great. I agreed with the great part, since I felt great. Great great great.

We kept chugging along, but I started to drag a bit (less great). It became harder and harder to keep up. Our conversation changed from us talking to each other into her talking and me gasping "un huh" and "okay" in between tortured breathes (not great). Needless to say, at some point I couldn't keep this up and dropped behind (just bad).

I started to feel more and more like I was running in syrup (I like syrup and all, but...) and got slower and slower while my breathing remained quite labored. Finally, even though I was getting close to the end, I stopped and walked for about 10-15 seconds to get my breathing under control. Once it was close enough, I ran as hard as I could to the finish. Man did that suck. I haven't had that much trouble breathing since I was an asthmatic little kid.

I'm pretty sure that I can generally run this pace, so I'm not entirely sure what happened. Maybe the problem is that we haven't run this path in such a long time and the distance has contracted in my memory, only for my body to discover that 4 miles at pace is still 4 miles at pace.

Oh well. I'll just kick that 9 mile run's ass tomorrow and I'll forget all about this run.

Eye of the tiger, baby. Eye of the tiger.