Extremely Negative

Don't worry, the title makes is seem worse than it was.

Yesterday's run never got off the ground. On the schedule was a 8-10k tune-up race and, without any races scheduled, we decided to do 5 miles at pace.

That is, we decided to do that the night before. The morning of I could barely drag myself out of bed and then when Leah's shins started acting up again we gave up. 0.8 miles for us and back home to ice and rest. Leah needs to get those shins healthy for the big race and, hell, I never wanted to go for the run in the first place.

This has been a running (heh, "running") theme for me during this taper. My motivation to run has been practically non-existent. This continued with today's long run.

Today Leah and I went out for 16 miles. We were up and out the door by 6:45 and it was a beautiful, albeit cool, Chicago morning. It was 4 miles to the lakefront and then out past McCormick Place, then back home. For Leah, the issue was shin pain. For the first 4 miles or so (I'm guessing here as she doesn't complain much) she had that stupid shin pain we all know and hate. For me, it was more mental. I just didn't want to run and 16 miles seemed so far. As a result, our first four miles were over 9:30 with a couple of them over 10 (minutes, in case that wasn't clear).

Hitting the lakefront, we started to heat up a bit. Our paced picked up into the low 9's and things were getting better. I still felt very, very unmotivated but it's not really all that hard to keep moving forward. You know, left right left right (lather, rine, repeat). There was another brief potty break, the second in two weeks after zero in 2 years for Leah and me, and we continued out 8.25 miles before turning around. A bit after that we took Gu and...

Zing!

Something happened with that Gu (magic Gu?) as our next miles were almost all under 9 minutes plus some under 8:30. Leah's shins were feeling good, my mind was revived, and we were speedy. My legs felt fresh and strong and the second half of the run was much faster than the first half. It was 16 miles with a very negative split, but a final pace of 9:15 minutes/mile which is about right.

In the end, just another easy, breezy 16. Bring on 26.2.