A trail runner I am not

Yesterday, Luke & I went running in Rock Cut State Park located in Rockford, IL. I've been mountain biking there plenty of times on the same trails he runs on. He's ran on these trails over and over again. I have not. I usually don't even run on real trails, I have a pavement trail and at times I can run on a limestone trail which is as "rustic" as I get in DeKalb/Sycamore.

It was such a gorgeous weekend. So happy for it. Very little clouds in the sky and quite warm. I'm wearing my old shoes which have over 400 miles on them now. But I didn't know how muddy the trail was going to be so I didn't want to wear my new shoes (more on them in another blog). We're waiting for the Garmin to pick up a signal but I guess I hit the touch bezel and it went to the training screen and I thought it found a signal. So we took off running.

About 9:15 minutes into the run, I was waiting to hear the beep so I knew when a mile was but I looked down at my Garmin and the distance was still 0.00. WHAT?! So we stop and come to find out, it never found a signal before I started the timer. Luckily, I could tell that we were going at a fairly rapid clip (of course) so I think we went over a mile in the first 9:15 minutes. Got the Garmin to find a signal and away we went again.

I wish I would have brought my camera with me (and it was in the car too). Loads of leaves on the path which meant that it was hard to see any rocks, sand, mud and those bloody roots. It was very tough on the ankles. Also, the hills, both downhill & uphill killed me. I hadn't run in a week; last time was the 15k race the week prior!! I also took off my long-sleeved shirt around 1 mile on my Garmin. Tied it around my waist.

I was about dead once my Garmin hit 2 miles. I made him walk. I was sooooo disappointed with myself. I started running again and in another little bit we walked again. So many walks. We didn't take any shortcuts or anything though. We ran/walked his normal route. I was dying for water along the way. I was breathing so heavily. He usually does this without any hydration on his run at all. We ran across a creek and I was very tempted to drink out of it. Ended up splashing my arms & legs with the very cold water instead.

And then my shoes started to give me grief. Lots of it. The tongue kept shifting on me in both shoes and wouldn't stay straight. I kept having to adjust it. Ended up giving me a sore tendon. I loosed up the laces to see if that would not put as much pressure on the tendon. Finally, I even pulled out the laces from the top eyelets and even that didn't help. When we were running on the road at the end, I took off my shoes & was running in socks. That didn't last very long since my feet are way too bony for barefoot running. So then I went to put them back on but just didn't tie the laces at all. That was a weird feeling and finished the run with that. I don't think I could even wear them just walking around that's how much the tongue was bothering me!

I wore a running skirt (bright pink) and a long-sleeved shirt (yellow) and a baby blue sports bra. I was soooo unmatching, it was AWESOME! But at the end of the run, I zoomed past Luke when he wasn't expecting it and he yelled up to me that he's in no hurry to catch up, said something about chasing skirt. So I got to tell him about the Skirt Chaser 5k race. :-)

Even after we got back to the car, I guzzled some water that I had in there (they taped up the water fountains already) and we walked down to the dock. Again, I forgot my camera in the car so never did get a picture of us; would have been a good one too, along the lake and after running. But I swear this guy does in fact exist!

While out on the run, I told him that I'm a little afraid that this run is gonna make me hate running again. Or gonna get me down as how bad I felt in October. I did exclaim that he knows how well I can run that I can run "fast" and "long" when I'm in shape. I think I was saying for my benefit moreso than to prove something to him. Luke also tried to tell me that it's OK, it's tough to do a run on trails when you're not used to it. At least he realised that and acted like he didn't mind. He said that he knew where to place his feet and which side of the trails to run on. I was so afraid that I was boring him. He ran this loop on Friday night and again on Saturday and decided to just do 1 loop on Saturday since he knew he would be running with me. I told him that he should have ran 2 after all since we were taking it incredibly easy! The only good thing I did was run up a long gradual hill that he says he doesn't look forward to. Had to push, challenge & prove myself I guess that I still had something in me. And on that note, I will be back and I will do it over and over and over again until I kick this trail's butt!

In the 4 years, that I've been going to the park, I've had some good memories there; Rob (my BFF) & I biking was one of them. And now this running with Luke.

Below is of course my BiM info but I've also linked the Garmin stats so you can see it in Google Maps, if you wanted to: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/18353053

Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 845 ft Location: Machesney Park, IL Elev. Gain: -16 ft Date: 11/08/09 Up/Downhill: [+459/-475] Time: 11:51 AM Difficulty: 2.9 / 5.0 Weather: Partly Cloudy 70 F temp; 54% humidity 70 F heat index; winds S 13 Performance Distance: 5.13 miles Time: 1:17:51 Speed: 4.0 mph Pace: 15' 11 /mi Calories: 519 Map Elevation (ft) Pace (min/mile) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 10' 44 -4' 27 5.6 +1.6 +7 ft 2 12' 44 -2' 27 4.7 +0.8 -105 ft 3 14' 51 -0' 20 4.0 +0.1 +62 ft 4 14' 57 -0' 14 4.0 +0.1 +65 ft 5 11' 57 -3' 14 5.0 +1.1 -56 ft end 10' 08 -5' 03 5.9 +2.0 +9 ft Versus average of 15' 11 min/mile

Posted from bimactive.com

Categories: Luke, Rock Cut State Park, trail running