Professional High Fiver.... and I need to grab a straw

Yesterday evening my family unit went out to see the Wurst Running Club Ever make our debut at the St. Michael Oktoberfest 5k.  I wasn't running it, as it is my scheduled rest day and Lord knows my danger zone legs needed it, I decided to at least bring some moral support. For a recap of the race, see Pete @ The Lakefront Trail's recap here (I'm also stealing some of his photos).

I made a sign, and I couldn't even take the time to check my spelling...Wurs(t) sign ever:

And here is a photo of the kid and myself:

And a group photo at the end of the WRCE:

my wife and kid make a little cameo in the back

I had fun giving out high fives to the runners, i'd say after the sub 19 minute finishers went by, I had a really high success rate. I felt like the Todd on his best day ever:

I loved that my daughter, loving to mimic, was trying to hand out high fives too. She got a high five from one lady who then said lets run! And she took off with her.. I had to quickly wrangle her back! woops.

Now here are some of the WRCE members running (I missed Jennifer's photo as we were taking pictures by who had on the team shirt, and she hadn't gotten hers yet, but I did high five her!)

Not WRCE, but funny

Can you name them all?

Okay, now that the fun part is over, lets get to today. I need to grab a straw cause this run suuuuuuccked.

I went to bed around 9:45pm seeing that there would be a good chance of thunderstorms starting at 3am F.......

I woke up at 1am hearing rain and felt defeated. I checked my phone's weather app and saw a giant mass of storms heading our way, double F. I may have to do the run right after work, blah.

3:20am, alarm goes off. Check radar - all clear and nothing in the state. SCORE! Wait, am I really that happy to be awake at 3:20am?

Hanson Marathon Method called for a 10 mile run at marathon pace, and include a warm up and cool down. So today's goal was to do 10 miles in 1:10:30. Last Friday I did my 9 miles at pace with ease and like a minute to spare...but the weather was also a lot better..

Full Disclosure: I'm planning on running the marathon for a 3:10 finish, which is about a 7:15 minute mile. But pre hammie strain, I was aiming for a 3:05 which is a 7:03 minute mile. I have not changed any of my training paces to reflect a 3:10, but instead still aim for 3:05 goal for my pace chart and so forth.

4am, out the door. Get GPS signal and start stopwatch. Time for the daily game of - does anything hurt?

The bottom of my left calf was tight as was part of my hamstring on my right leg, noted mostly for PT purposes. Stretching after 10 minutes helped.

Now just to keep stay fully honest. I was mentally b*tching the entire warm up. I felt creaky, I wasn't sure if I should bag it and rest. The humidity was rising, near 90% at 4am, almost 100% when I finished. Breathing ended up being the hardest part of the run.

I convinced myself to at least try to do the work out.. I asked myself, what if the marathon is under these god awful conditions? I can't give up then... so I went.

I got a stitch in my first marathon pace mile.. I was ready to just say screw it.. but I didn't. The path was mine. Nobody was out to see me have a fit or whatever emotion I let out.

My main goal for today was to internalize my pace again, but the breathing issue was throwing me for a loop.  My first 6 miles I was able to hold it, but then the last 4 the humidity and heat settled in and my pace started to flubber. I stopped a few times for water after I realized how much I was sweating and my sneakers were like sponges.

End result? 10 miles at marathon pace in 1:11. So 7:06 average... I'd like to say, oh if it wasn't for the humidity, I would have hit my goal, but how often do we get the perfect run? Try harder next time.

At least my energy is amazing, yay runner's high. Physical therapy today and the results of my video gait analysis will be given to me as well.

Long enough post, Happy Friday!

Edit: AND:

Thanks Xaarlin and Erin for letting me know!!

Edit 2: Almost forgot -crushing high five from Erin as well this morning!