16 mile long run: sulking, pit bulls, and proving to myself that I can run my marathon pace.

I was all bummed out earlier, thinking that I wasn't going to make my goal pace for my first marathon.  As I started my 16 mile long run (in almost perfect weather, by the way--I ran the last 6 miles without any gloves on, which made me perversely happy), I was trapped in a funk that made my first few miles junk.  Plodding along, I thought I was never ever going to run at race pace.  Ever.  Even the sunny day and perfect weather couldn't cheer me up.  Run run run, sulk sulk sulk.

And then the pit bull chased me.

Normally this dog is behind a fence, but the front gate was open and, as soon as it saw me, it came after me with a vengeance.  I'm serious: it was out to get me, and it was gaining ground on me so fast I was deciding which leg I was going to let it bite when it got to me.  (I pulled my best pace of the run while running away screaming from the thing--a 5:30 min/mile.)  Thankfully, the owners were outside and had good control of the dog; as soon as they spoke, the dog stopped. After I caught my breath, they apologized and promised it would be secure on my return trip past their house.  And it was.  I like it when people do what they say they're going to do.

I kept on trucking down the road, not really sulking anymore, but getting pissed off with myself.  Why did I think I couldn't do it?  Why did I think I couldn't ever truly do a pace run?  Do I release some sort of dog-chasing pheromone?

So, I decided that after the warm-up the pit bull provided me, I was going to pick up the pace and see what I could do.  You can see exactly what I did below:

It's obvious that in the first few miles I was all drowning in my "I'll never run my target marathon pace" sorrows.  And then you can see, right after mile 5, I started to speed up.  By mile 8, I was trucking.  My brain said to slow down--and I did--for the next two miles.  But after that I really wanted to see if I could do it--run at my projected race pace until the end of the run.

And I did.  Those splits from mile 8 onwards may not mean much to you, but they mean the world to me.  It's just the confidence booster I needed to get out of my downward mental spiral.

Now I know I can do it.  So that's what I'm going to do from here on out.

Because I know you want to hear more about the other highlights of my run, I have created a visually appealing breakdown of the major events of the run for your eyeballs.  Please direct said eyeballs to the graph below:

As you can see, peeing was a major event during this run.  Why is it that I can pee 3 bajillion times before I head out, but within the first 3 miles my bladder starts giving me crap (well, urine)?  At least today I had some semblance of privacy out on my country roads.  And I have no idea why my pace was all ziggity-zaggity there after mile 14; all I remember at that point was just trying to keep moving to maintain pace until I got home.

So now I've proved to myself that I can run at my goal pace in a long run.  Now to work on making my cross-training more aerobic without giving up my weight-lifting time.  More on that tomorrow.