Eight miles is my favorite distance to run. That is, provided I’m in decent enough shape that I can run it. It’s long enough that I feel pretty accomplished but short enough that I don’t need to spend the rest of the day with my feet propped up on the couch. (Need being the operative word, I probably still do lie on the couch after running any distance.)
Eight miles was on my training plan for this weekend. Even though I usually enjoy the distance, the thought of running it by my house was less than thrilling. I have some loops that I run, but they’re all on main roads and they’re not pretty and people always seem to want to honk their damn horn at the runner on the sidewalk. In other words, not the best running environment.
Instead of dealing with all that, I decided to go to the Silver Comet Trail instead. The Silver Comet Trail is about 40 minutes away. It’s far enough that I have to really decide that I’m going there, it can’t be a spur of the moment thing. The weather was really nice on Saturday though, so I made the decision to drive there.
First, I had to pick up some pants that I had altered. My plan was to also stop at REI to pick up some Gu but it was out of the way, so I hoped that I would be okay with out it. It took a while to get there because I went a weird way to stop off at the dry-cleaners, but I had a nice view of the city at least.
I stopped at a gas station to pick up some Gatorade. I hoped that would be an okay substitute for the missing Gu. Did you know that you can buy boiled peanuts at RaceTrac? Neither did I. I never had boiled peanuts until I moved to Georgia, but I actually really like them.
Moving on.
The trail was pretty crowded, but not horribly so and I parked my car and was on my way. The good thing about this trail for me (it’s a paved trail, by the way) is that I’ve run it so many times that I can break it up into sections. For example, I know that there’s a bridge at .75 miles, another right after 2, etc. I find that looking forward to my little checkpoints or whatever you’d call them is a good way to break up the monotony. Because even though this trail is very pretty, it’s also pretty boring.
It’s boring, but it’s flat. The race I’m training for is not flat so I do like to train on hills sometimes, however, doing a nice, flat run is a good confidence booster because my times are faster than normal.
I ran at a relaxed pace although towards the end I sort of speeded up because I wanted to be finished. I felt really great until the last mile and then my hips felt really sore. That always happens to me; the last mile is super hard no matter what the distance. Here are my mile splits:
1. 10:46
2. 10:22
3. 10:30
4. 11:06
5. 10:18
6. 9:50
7. 9:49
8. 10:06
Hello negative splits. Nice to see you.
Eights miles – done!
