The Virtual Running Club Decides

Today was supposed to be a major step toward the marathon in about five weeks, an 18-miler. I woke up very early and once again ran the first half in dark and the beginning dawn. And then for some reason it all fell to pieces. Well, the main reason that I'm blaming is the humidity. Once again I could tell before a mile was under my shoes that the humidity was way up, and it was about 85%. The temperature wasn't bad, but humidity kills. When I'm brushing sweat out of my hair in the first mile I know it's going to be tough. I hydrated pretty well, I thought, following the same plan as last week. Unfortunately that just wasn't good enough. As added insult I ended up with a few nice blisters, including a big one on the underside of my right pinky toe. That happens so rarely that it just bugs me that much worse when it does.

The Boy had a practice game today, so on my way home I called my Virtual Running Club members. Well, the other member. He said his run had not gone well, either, and that he had topped out at 13 miles. I laughed and told him I'd won, then, because I ran 13.1. Yes, my goal once I decided to quit early was to get in a half-marathon, and that's what I did. As we talked neither of us felt good about our training thus far and what's still to come before the Des Moines Marathon. I remarked that maybe the day both of us had bad runs was maybe not the day to make a decision, but after some more discussion we decided to regroup and focus on the Memphis Marathon in December. I'm going to revise our training plan and hope that things get better as autumn kicks into gear. I think I'll put the Kansas City Half Marathon into the plan, especially since that's the weekend I would have gone to Des Moines.

I'll admit I'm a little disappointed, but also a little relieved. The stress of trying to fit in quality runs, especially in the next 2-3 weeks, was going to be a bit much. Plus the other member of the Virtual Running Club has an international business trip to India in the next month, and you know that would be tough to get in good workouts. It stinks to run only one full marathon this year after finishing four last year. But I'm just not feeling it at the moment, and I do feel better about gunning for December instead.