exhausting weekend.

it's a really good thing that i'm going on vacation at the end of this week, because weekends just aren't cutting it for getting my resting and relaxing in.

Friday night I pretty much just chilled out and finished up some reading that I need to get done. That was relaxing, but then I got up early on Saturday to get my longer run in. My plan calls for long runs on Sunday and easy recovery days on Saturdays, but since there's not much to recover from yet (since Friday was a rest day) I swapped them around. I'll probably do this fairly often, mostly because I like having my long run out of the way on the weekend.

Saturday was just a gorgeous day. low 60's when I headed out, and nice and sunny. It was one of those days when everything felt great, you know? I have to determine for sure what my pace goal is going to be. I feel confident that I can go under 4, but I need to decide how far under I want to shoot for. I'm going to talk it over with good friend KTG (formerly boston bound katy, but she's done boston now and thus needs a new name). Is it silly to shoot for a crazy fast goal if you're feeling awesome going into your training... as long as you have the mindset that it's not the end of the world if you don't hit that goal? it's all confusing to me, as I've never actually put in the hard training required to "race" a marathon, but I'm ready to do it this time around.

anyways, I felt awesome on the run, and ended up going too fast for one mile and then telling myself slow down for the next for a lot of the run. I have to get used to going at a nice, slower pace for my long runs. here's how it broke down...

1 - 8:41 ack!
2 - 9:36 much better.
3 - 9:18
4 - 9:27
5 - 9:18
6 - 9:30
7 - 9:33 big hill in this mile
8 - 9:06 big downhill here
9 - 8:57
10 - 9:20 spent much of this mile fidgiting with my shuffle
11 - 9:08
12 - 9:13

9:16/mile pace overall. my splits were pretty much all over the place, but i'll get the hang of things eventually. This also is largely because the route that I run undulates quite a bit, where there will be a lot of rolling hills in some miles (like mile 4) and none at all in others (11). regardless, I need to work on slowing down the pace a bit. I shouldn't really be going much under 9:15/mile on longer runs, so I need to get used to that on these medium length runs. I was happy that I felt so awesome on this run though. At no point did I really feel like I was "pushing it" to go faster. I feel like I'm in much better shape going into this training than I had been for any of my previous marathon training cycles. yay!

The rest of Saturday I spent down with my family. The rugrat and I hung out all day, in what was a surprisingly enjoyable afternoon/evening. he informed my sister that I am "awesome!" and "so cool!" (most likely because I bought him finger paint). he also informed me as he was helping me make my brother's birthday cake that I am his best friend. evidently I stole the title from my dad. sweet. my dad is excited because that basically means he can go nap instead of constantly being bugged by the kid.

Saturday night I went out with KTG, her sister, and her cousin. The primary goal was to get KTG drunk because it was her birthday (and, she very rarely drinks). Three martinis and a shot of vodka later? mission accomplished. that wasn't so hard. I drunk dialed gary and annoyed him for a while, which i'm sure he enjoyed. at least it wasn't too late, so he was still awake. I crashed at KTG's parents place (KTG lives in Chicago and was home visiting for the weekend) and woke up after a very brief night's sleep on the floor (there was plenty of bed room, I don't know why I opted for the floor) and went to lunch with my own family before heading home in the late afternoon to pretty much just crash for the evening, since I was so drained. So it looks like i'm heading out for yesterday's recovery 4 tonight instead!