It Was So Bad I Got Passed By A House

Spent the weekend in Rochester with family. I was looking forward to this weekend for many family related reasons:
-I haven't seen my parents for awhile
-haven't seen my sister and her kids for awhile (you too Ken)
-it was my nephew's birthday
-was going to get to watch my nephew in his final football game of the year (in his first year of playing)
-and was going to get Kayli for the weekend and be with her for more than just 10 minutes.

Everything turned out great family-wise. All the kids played wonderfully together (no tears), Thomas liked all his presents (or maybe it was just all the cash) and the football game ended in a tie so there was no pouting by either team. Mom even made some of her awesome vegetable soup from a recipe that's at least 4 generations old now and some apple crisp from apples the kids picked Saturday afternoon. For the most part I ate healthy stuff, it's just the amount I ate that might be called into question.

The only downer to the weekend was my training run. After my nephew's football game Sat. morning I was going to run back to my sister's house. They live about 15 miles outside of the city so I mapped out a route to tack on a few more feet to come up with my 22 miler.

The game ended so I got set to run while the fam took off, planning to see them again in the 3-3:30 hrs it would take me. The first couple of miles started out innocently enough, but early on I could feel that I wasn't getting into "that rhythm" and it felt like more of a struggle than it should've. Then the hills started. I never realized Rochester was as hilly as it is, but then again I've only ever driven through it and never had to do a run like this one.

I knew I was in for a long afternoon when just before mile 9 I already had to stop at a Kwik Trip for a mental break more than anything and to top off my water bottle. Not a good sign. I struggled through the next couple of miles and came upon a semi that was pulled over to change a flat tire. It was an oversized load as they were hauling a pre-fab house addition. My new goal was to get to my next turn a few more miles down the road before they got that fixed and passed me back. That goal was shot down. I was running so slow I eventually got passed by a house. I just chuckled...it was just that type of run.

Long story short...Mom and Dad took all the kids to the apple orchard after they left the football game. On their way home from there they decided to check on me. They came across me at about mile 13 and with the way things were going I opted to end the run and jump in the van. I decided it was better to cut my losses rather than beat myself up over another 9 miles. I've already done one 20 miler and knew I had another coming up again this next weekend so I just chalked this one up to it being a bad day and I'll try it again.

It does put a little chink in the armor though and cause a few doubts to creep in. Hopefully this final long training run will go well and put those doubts to rest. My silver lining to the failed run is that I planned properly by putting in multiple 20s so if the first 1 or 2 do go bad I have another crack at it. I'm also trying to convince myself that I didn't want all these long runs to go well. I didn't want to peak too early and then bomb during the actually marathon. This way, my bad run is now behind me and shouldn't happen on race day.

Yeah...just like I planned it! ;)