Gentlemen, start your engines!

It's Molson Grand Prix weekend in Toronto -- amongst a long list of other cultural happenings in the city -- and as I stepped out into the 21C, sunny morning, I could already hear the hum of the racing cars reverberating off the downtown buildings. (To be honest, it took me a few minutes to clue in on what that noise was... a giant mosquito? Don't be silly).

I wish I could say all engines were revved up to go on my part, but in truth, it took me a long time to get out of bed this morning. My agenda -- because I didn't do that Long Run yesterday as planned (funny how an upcoming house move gets in the way) -- was to get a head start on mileage before joining up with the Sunday Running Room group and top up the rest of the distance with a group. I meant to be out the door by 7:30. But it was more like 8 by the time I got my act together.

I notched 1.81 miles/2.9K before I got to the Clubhouse (that would be the Running Room store). Which was a good time for a pit stop.

Then I needed to make a choice. How much further was I going to run today? Because I'm blending plans, I decided to split the difference on what Running Room and Higdon called for this week on the Long Run. Higdon had 5 miles on the schedule -- which I felt, would you believe it, was too short! -- and Running Room asked me to do 8 miles. I decided to do 6.5 miles/10.5K.

However, conundrum. The Marathon Group was going to do 23K today -- a mock half marathon, and I believe the route was pretty much the one I'll be doing in September. But, I am not ready for that today, now, no way. And besides, I was slightly disappointed my new running buddies, T&C, from two weekends ago weren't even there today. Who was I going to run with? I'm in no condition to ever be in pole position either. The rest of the group runs too fast for me, including Frankie.

What I should have done is gone with either the 5K or 10K group today, as I had other business to attend to at 10:30. Which basically meant I had to wrap up the run by 9:30 or so.... but those groups had left by the time I thought of it. So I set out with the Marathon Group. I managed to stay with them for nearly a mile -- and Frankie was good enough to run much slower than he is accustomed to just to keep me company -- but decided this wasn't going to work for me. I was going to run solo today, and musicless, except for a Strokes song that I had looping in my head (Juicebox, from latest album "First Impressions of Earth"). Then parted ways with them and headed for the Don River trail.

I passed a pack of runners who were likely the 10K group at the tail end of my trek. I walked a little bit more than usual. Before the Group had set out, the RunningGuru doled out a bit of advice about hydration and said since it was the longest run the group has done together, we'd probably get tired. So he said we should think about why.

I thought about why I was running on empty and I reached a conclusion pretty quickly.
1. Not a lot of sleep.
2. Poor nutrition the night before and certainly not enough breakfast.
3. It's hot outside.

And then I started to lose some confidence. Like this whole marathon training is the dumbest thing I've ever come up with. I think 10K is tough at the best of times... how on earth do I think I can do that times four?

Fell close to a half-mile short of goal distance, as time was getting tight. Completed 6.33 miles/10.19K over 1:14:21. Maybe next weekend I'll run better and with more focus, but I better plan now. Next Sunday is moving day, part one.