I had a miserable terrible awful dreadful horrible death march disguised as a long run today. It has been a long training week and I looked forward to perhaps a light little run before resting on the Madison Park Beach with Ruth whilst sipping some cold, sweet alcohol laced beverage. After all, we certainly had earned it with all the hard long training we had put in.

Then my coach came over to talk about training for the next month and left me with a 15 mile long run to do before meeting Ruth at Madison. The plan did not sound too bad as I was to do it as a run (10 min) walk (1 min). My first three miles hurt. A lot. Then I started to feel better running around Lake Union until the heat got to me and even though I had water and gatorade with me -- and took a sip of each during the 1 minute walk, I started to get slower and it became harder. Much. I also went off the planned route a bit because I got little lost. By the time I hit the Arboretum, I had to walk for 5 minutes to try to get composed again.

Finished by running straight down Madison for a total finish of about 12 miles. In 2.5 laborious wretched hours. By the time I got to Ruth, I was hot and cranky beyond words -- even though I had plenty of words to describe my unhappiness. Ruth said that I am built for endurance sports (I disagreed today) -- but perhaps the Itiderod might be my race...

12 Mile Run @ 02:29
127a. 229m
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Almost hit 20 hours of training this week. Next week will offer a bit more relief...