Double Digits

     It's a happy and proud day for me today. While out on my run I was thinking about the last time I ran a distance with double digits in it, and I came to the conclusion that it was probably just shy of a year ago. I really wanted to know for sure so I checked out my history on the Garmin app on my phone and was floored by what I saw.  If you can believe it, the last double digit run I did was the Half Marathon during the Glass City Marathon way back on 4/26/15.  Yeah I know!  I couldn't believe it either.  This was my come back race from my issues with my IT Band and where I set a new half PR.  When I looked at May and June's history I had shortened up my long runs in May while recovering from the half I just crushed.  It looks like I was just starting the uptick in distance at the beginning of June to start getting ready for my second full marathon when the hip pain developed, and we all know how that turned out. 

     Being that I have not run a double digit distance in over 13 months I am really glad I took things rather slow.  It was in the low 70s this morning, but the humidity was climbing pretty fast so I wanted to get it out of the way before the sun really started cooking.  I kept my pace around 11 min miles for the first couple just to get my legs under me.  After that I slowly increased my pace to a 10:30 avg for most of the remainder of the run.  I didn't want to complicate things with a bunch of elevation changes, not that northwest Ohio has elevation changes, so I made sure my route only had one small hill and no highway overpasses.

     I was so pumped when I hit that ten mile mark that I got a little carried away and pushed rather hard for the last mile.  I got my pace up to a 9:51, which I was pretty proud of, but I have to remember I am still building my strength back and I don't want to have a set back.