3/31 It Wasn't THE 10 Miler, But It Was Ten Miles

Saturday was the Charlottesville Ten Miler. Which I signed up for. Six months ago. And did not train for. And did not run.....

But I did pick up my Nike Dri-Fit T-Shirt for...duh. I set this goal a long time ago. I wanted to run a distance race and finish. My long term goal is to run a marathon [and then get a tattoo so I can unspokenly brag to everyone]. To be honest, I didn't train like I should. I did what could be considered "spot training." I would run and push myself for a week, and then ride the high of "successful running habits" for the rest of the month. January rolled around and I didn't think I had enough time to train and be competitive, then February rolled around and I was stressed about the time crunch, then came March and I was teetering on whether I could even make it ten miles (not even considering this is one of the hardest foot races on the east coast). In March, I just decided to hit it hard and do my best at getting to ten miles. I ran regularly more regularly than usual, and saw some progress. Did I make it to ten miles? Unfortunately, no. But I didn't make the decision not to run until the night before the race so that I pushed myself as though I had to run 10 miles. 

So race day rolled around and since I already had the t-shirt, I told myself I had to do my own ten miler if I didn't run the real one. I ran my longest run to date at 7 miles and walked 3 miles later in the day with the pup. It wasn't THE 10 Miler, but it was ten miles! I wish I had enough surplus brain power to photograph while running, but let's be honest kids, I use up all of my mental real-estate on tricking myself that "Its almost over." Just so you know- it worked for the first 4 miles, but after that, my strategy broke down when it wasn't over [again.and.again.]. I think I am going to resort to one of those headbands they tie a treat to in cartoons for motivation.

True story
http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/d/dangling_carrot.asp

Probably more accurate
http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/s/size_2.asp

Overall, I am pretty sore wowed by the fact that I made it 7 miles. That distance still seems so much to me. Also, I realized that I probably bit off more than I could chew for my first race. I probably should have signed up for a 5k first- or even a 10k. I am still glad that I had a goal to work for and probably wouldn't have made it this far without that. 

So next, I am going to look for a 5k to sign up and train for! Since I can already run that whole way, maybe I could work on a competitive time? [Let's be honest, probably not. Its a nice thought though.]

My food on Saturday was a little off par, but the exercise made up for it. For breakfast, I had a small breakfast taco with black beans, eggs, potato, and jalepenos from Beer Run with some coffee and 1/3 of an order of texas fries for 500 calories. I didn't get breakfast until 11.

After breakfast, I went on my run followed by lots of water, so I skipped lunch. Post run photo!

Hot mess, this picture actually looks better than I did. It poured down rain on about 1/3 of my run!

I've mentioned this before, but Matt and I are following a strict budget at the moment and trying to save some of our pennies. We have a flexible piece of our budget that if we complete our weekly to-do list, we each get an extra $50 to spend however we want [or on necessary expenses like haircuts which are not in our budget now]. Crossing off the 7 mile run put the end of my to-do list in sight so I went shopping!

Sz 6 Calvin Klein, what what! I almost bought this, but it would have been over $50 after tax. :( 

Sz 8 Calvin Klein. I did buy this. It just looked so summery. It was also $20 less expensive. My face was still pink from the run and a bit sunburned.

For dinner, I went to a friend's house to grill out. I had two premium beers for 600 calories, 1/2 a but with 1/2 a turkey burger, 1/4 of a sweet potato, and mac n cheese for ~600 calories.

[dinner not pictured]

Total calories: 1,700

Exercise: 7 mi. run + 3 mi. walk

Net Cal: ~1,050