I Hate Long Runs

It rained last night for a few hours and it was cloudy all morning.  I thought it would be a good day for a long run.  It would have if the sun didn't come out after about a mile.  Nothing like the Florida sun warming up the vegetation a day after a long rain.  Humid is normal in Orlando.  Humid is expected.  This type of humidity, though, is steamy.  Sometimes you suck a warm steamy breath in and it takes you off guard and feel like you are going to choke.  It's hard to explain.  Wait, it's like running and then all of a sudden you hit a pocket of air like you are in a sauna.

I am used to having my hamstrings feel tight for a warmup and then it usually goes away after the first mile or two.  Today, my left hamstring was tight for the first 4 miles.  I only ran 6.75 miles, so that was most of my run.  I finally felt good for about the last mile.  I had a destination in mind, so I stopped running, but I finally hit a point where I thought I could run a little longer.  I should have mapped out a route before I started.  I just started down the road and I thought it would be around 8 miles by the route I chose.  Apparently not.

I just feel so bored running more than about 4 or 5 miles.  I have no idea how people can run a marathon.  Hours?  Really?  I can't even think of a genre of music that I could play and still enjoy it for that much time running.  I hate long runs.  I know I need them to increase my endurance, so it is a necessary evil, but I wish riding a bike for a long distance would do the trick.  There is no replacement.  Just the long run.

This was my long run for the week and it still fell short of what I wanted to accomplish.  Considering I missed Thursday's group practice, I hope I didn't lose any ground on my progress.