Commitment Run

I always have a problem with commitment for races. I've had issues in the past where I couldn't devote the time required to training and ended up running races I wasn't prepared for. RoadBunner's comment on my last entry made me think about my goals for this year. My boyfriend and family know I will run LA Marathon. My boss and colleagues know that I will run LA Marathon. Even you guys know I will run LA Marathon. But until this morning, I didn't really know if I would run LA Marathon.

My training plan called for an easy paced 32km run today. I'm not sure why they call easy but it certainly was far from easy. My first challenge was getting out of bed. Despite the beautiful sun shining outside, I didn't feel like getting up. I finally pulled myself out of bed, had a quick breakfast and procrastinated a bit, trying to find reasons not to run. I finally got dressed and headed out the door after a sleepy Alex asked me why I didn't get up earlier for my 3 hour run instead of delaying all the days' other activities :)

Once I was out, I really enjoyed the beautiful sun:
I didn't know where I was going. A good 32km course is hard to find around here in winter. I knew of a good ~6km loop so I decided to do it 5 times. I must be a bit of a masochist to think up of such a plan. The upside that my oxygen deprived self identified quickly was that I could opt out of the long run every time I ran by close to home.
The first loop was difficult even if the weather was gorgeous! On more than one occasion I tried to find a reason to stop after the first loop and motivation became an issue. I knew that my usual food rewards would not be enough to keep me going so I decided put my participation in the LA Marathon in play. If I finished this 32km training run today, I would finally sign up! Thankfully I also had some pretty pumping music to keep me going and even if I'm a bit ashamed to say, Aqua's Candyman actually saved me and gave me the motivation to keep plugging at it. Say what you want about Aqua being over-the-top cheesy but this morning, their music was to my ears what a handful is Skittles is to my taste buds :)

Speedwise I did really well in keeping an overall pace that is pretty reasonable.
My average speed for the entire run is about 5m23s/km or 11.1 km/h. My slowest km was 5m39s and my fastest 4m59s. Pretty even if you ask me.

The course itself was really boring. I saw 1 other runner and some people walking their dogs. Most of it was deserted.
Still, I managed to go around this loop 5 times, proving that I really really want to go to Los Angeles :) And if finishing this run wasn't an achievement worthy enough already, I finished on track for a sub 4 hour finish. YeeHaw! I'm not sure I could have kept going at that speed for another 10 km but I'll figure that part out in LA :)

In the mix today was a totally random assortment of music. Aqua's Greatest Hits, Mes Aieux's En Famille, Total Eclipse's Delta Aquarids, Space Tribe's ShapeShifter and Xerox and Freeman's Human Race.