I am having to come to terms with the fact that I simply am not hitting these speed goals.  I gave myself an extraordinary amount of time to do this run today and I did like 1.5 miles of warm-up to get up to 7 mph, and then I could only hang onto that speed for like 1.2 miles before I had to stop and walk and drink some water.  I gave myself sufficient time to ramp back up to 7 mph and snagged another 8 tenths of a mile, bringing my total to 2 miles at speed.  After another walking break, I went after another speed mile succesfully, but then I had to walk some more.  Still 1.8 miles to go.  Maybe I’ll see about doing that final 1.8 in one shot.  Yeah, that didn’t work.  I managed another mile at speed, then had to rest again before knocking off the final 8 tenths of a mile.  I have no idea how many total miles I racked up trying to get this accomplished today, but I do know it took me about 1 and a half to two hours to do 41 minutes of running.

A fun little moment, though, was when one of the personal trainers came up to me, undoubtedly being friendly to drum up personal training business for himself, and he asked me what I was watching so intently on the television.  I said that it was nothing special, I was just trying to distract myself so I didn’t die.  He laughed and mentioned that he’s gonna be doing the P.F. Chang’s Half-Marathon in a couple of weeks and I know there was a bragging tone in his voice, so I smiled and said, “See ya there!”  Unfortunately for him, he could not hide his suprise when he blurted out, “You’re gonna run the half?”  So, I had to play it up.  I bowed my head and shook my head, “no,” like I was embarrassed I gave him the impression I was gonna run the half, and then smiled again and told him I’d be running the full.  At this point, I think he was looking around for the video crew from Punk’d, but he tried to regain his composure and refrain from insulting me, if I was, in fact, telling the truth, and it was clear he still wasn’t sure if I was telling the truth or not.

So, he asks a question, perhaps to trip me up – What sort of a finish time are you shooting for?  Now, this is where I have to be really honest with myself about the fact that I’m probably gonna miss my 4:59 goal, so it was my turn to look a little sheepish and I admitted I was looking at about 5:05.  He considered that for a moment, recognizing that I was admitting my goal wasn’t that athletically impressive, and commented, sincerely, that that was a pretty good speed.  He mentioned that was about what he and his wife were going for, that they would be doing about 10-minute-miles for the half, but then he quickly added that that was HER pace, implying that he’d go much faster without her, although not explicitly stating that.  His math, to me, was a little off ’cause I’m looking at about 11 1/2 minute miles, which is not very close to 10, but I guess it was close enough, in his opinion, once he sized himself up, compared to me, and he figured if I was gonna be doing a minute and a half more than him, that was still pretty good.

So then, that was it, I was “in.”  I got to be one of the “big people,” and he walked away, not once even trying to sell me personal training sessions.  Cool!  He came back some time later and told me I was not normal, and I believe that was a sincere compliment and a statement of his being impressed that I would do a Marathon.  I’ll take it!