Noo-nee-noo-nee-noo

Remember this guy? He's from Sesame Street and would regularly spout out the noo-nee... dialog while working on demonstrating a new letter. It was his way of entertaining himself while thinking of his next move.

That's sorta how I felt this past weekend.

I got in a lovely 21 miler on Saturday; it was one of those runs where things came together nicely though not what I'd call perfectly. I fueled well: shot blocks at mile 5, gel at 10.5 and some more blocks at 17.5 or so and I hydrated well but I did still have a stalled out moment between miles 10-13. It was a lapse in concentration and a time of some mental weakness; I often have these in my LRs but can nearly always pull myself out as well. I've perused old runs in my Garmin both from training and races and can always locate that stalled-out moment. In fact, I was just looking at my splits from last year's New Haven 20K (which I'll run again this coming Labor Day/next Monday) and see that miles 8-10 were the perpetrating miles. I fall off pace by about 45-50 secs. each mile but then pop right back in like nothing happened, to finish strong. It's frustrating but correctable - I'm sure!! This will continue to be my focus for the remainder of training and for the next 3 races I have scheduled.

Back to the LR, I was back in the game by mile 14 and running very smoothly. Came out of the park and into the streets to finish up. It ended up being one of those runs that could have continued on for several miles longer. Yay!!! How I wish I could bottle that feeling and tap into during those stalled out moments and/or share it with any running buddies that may need an extra boost! So 21 miles in 3:14:33 (9:15/mile) - most of the miles were closer to 9:00s with a bad ass 8:08 in mile 20 but the stalled out buggers messed up my average. Grrr.

So that was the weekend, a bunch of pre-running noo-nee-noo-nee-noo, a bunch of running and then a bunch of post-running noo-nee-noo-nee-noo.

And now some M-A-G-I-C