When you set out to run 12 miles lots of interesting things can happen in those 2 hours.
No dog stories today. Well, except the cute puppy that followed me for about 1/4 of a block. The exciting stuff came from buses and motorcycles today. Earlier in the week I had two idiot bus drivers try to push me off the road. They were one after the other on a one way road. It was two lanes and no one was in the other lane. I was running on the left side of the road and the first one moved over to see how close he could get to me. The second one followed suit but got quite a bit closer.
Today when I went down that street I put the iPod in my left hand and was ready to beat on the side of the bus if it got to close. The driver today did not even challenge me. Later in the run, I had a bus that sat at a stop sign with plenty of time to go, there were no cars behind me. He waited until I got into the intersection and he started to move out. I put on a scowl at the driver and ran in front of him. I also freed up my hitting hand ready to beat on the front of the bus and maybe even jump on for a little ride and a talk with the driver. I hate stupidity. He backed down.
Of all things, today, I had a motorcycle that was being idiotic. Admittedly, he was not doing what he was doing out of meanness, worse he was doing it because he was so self absorbed to care that there was anyone around him. He pulled over right in front of me like he was going to make a turn at the corner. I had to stop running so that I would not run into the side of him, though I considered it. When he did not make the turn and instead parked just a few feet in front of me, I had to control myself enough to keep from just walking up beside him and pushing him and his bike over on their side.
Other than those incidences, which were fleeting seconds, I had a great run. I was supposed to run 12 today, but stopped by the house between miles 8 and 9 to tell my wife I was still alive. She informed me that I was running behind schedule to be ready for an appointment I had this morning. I decided then that I would have to cut the run short. I really felt good physically and mentally. The purpose of this 12 mile run was to evaluate to see if I was ready for the 13.1 mile race. I really feel that I am and that I could have easily done the last bit of the run if I were not out of time. So I cut the run down to 10 miles.
I also have a 10 Km. (6.2 miles) race tomorrow morning. By cutting the run short today, I am better able to run tomorrow.
I did a bit of an experiment. I have been trying different gels and such during the run. The last few weeks I have tried Coke instead. Today I did a Coke, but did not de-fizz it completely. I wanted to see what the ill effects might be. I ended up with a bit of belching at first, but that quickly faded and I forgot all about it. So de-fizzing is helpful when actually trying to drink it, but I don’t think it negatively affected me in any way.
All in all, a good run. It was 1:59:05 at an 11:54 pace. That is about the speed it should be. I would like for the half marathon to be around a 10:15 pace. Physically I can do it. Sometimes I zone out while running and slow down to a crawl because I am not paying attention.