17.1 K Run - My longest road distance

This morning we did a 17.1 km run. This was my longest distance on the road. I found my longest distance ever and it was 18.4 km in the trails and it took me 2.56.22 hours. (August 19, 2007) The 17.1 km this morning took me 1.51.45 hours. In other words - it took me an hour and 5 minutes longer to do an extra 1.3 km in the trails.

The group of people at the Running Room are awesome. Some of my IF training mates have joined and the combination of them with my new friends from the Running Room group make the running that much better. They are all so encouraging and motivating. There is one gentleman there that is training for a marathon on his 80th birthday! Incredible.

I am fairly new to road running - most of my jogs / runs have been in the trails. You will always be faster on the road than in the trails. The trails generally have a lot more hills so you're much slower than on the road. I am still pretty amazed at how much more difficult the trails are.

Anyhow - back to today's run. We did intervals of 10 minutes of running and 1 minute of walking. At first, I thought I would just run through the whole thing - but then I thought I should just stick with the program. For the first few intervals, it was a nice break. However, as time went on - I was so looking forward to that 1 minute walk! It seemed like the 1 minute kept getting faster as time went on. I'd look down and it was 'time to run again!?'

It's pretty amazing how aware you become of your body parts when you're running these distances. While I was running today - I noticed my left hamstring is tight - I need to stretch it out a bit. My pinkie toenail on my left foot is too long - it is rubbing on my shoe and annoying me a bit. Not something you notice on a regular basis - until you're running for almost 2 hours straight.

My iPod mix is coming along. Maroon 5 "Wake Up Call" seems to be exactly in tune with my cadence. Also - Nelly "Country Grammar" seems to have a good steady beat.

Lastly, I thought I would add some jogging / running 'jargon' here. There are usually words that are associated with every sport that are used on a regular basis by people participating. Today's word is 'cadence'. Cadence is "the rhythm of a person's walk". It's basically the musical equivalent of BPM or Beats per Minute. If you get into a nice rhythm / cadence when you're running - you get to know what your speed is going to be per km or 5 km, etc.

That's all for now - I need to stretch!
Apparently next Sunday is another 16 km...