Killer Hills and The Twilight Zone

Temperature: 79 degrees; Splits 9:31; 9:39; 9:52; 10:08; 10:03; 10:15; 10:32; 10:49 1:20:49 total for 8 miles; 10:06 per mile pace.

Today's run was designed to be a "Long One," as Jeff Galloway calls it. In this case, it was a scheduled 8 miler, run at a 2 minute per mile pace slower than what pace I could normally run on the given day. In other words, if I felt I could run at an 8 minute per mile pace today, then I should run the 8 miles at a 10 minute pace. Also, I am supposed to adjust (add on time) for heat, humidity, and hills, and incorporate walk breaks every 6 minutes of running. That being said, I was planning on running as many difficult hills as I could during my 8 miles today. I felt that I needed to plan on running 10:40 minute miles (8:40 plus 2 minutes). Wow did I screw up! First, because of the heat and hills, I should have planned on 9 minute/11 minute per mile pace. I ran some "killer hills." Probably too many "killer hills." I started off strong, but by miles 3-4, I was quickly heading into the Twilight Zone. For me the Twilight Zone (Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzlG28B-R8Y)is when I'm running, but I'm barely aware of my surroundings. I'm on autopilot. I even had my "tool" belt with 1 bottle of water and 1 bottle of Erev energy drink. Nope, I haven't bought any GU gel, GU chomps, or anything of the sort. So desperate me resorted to an energy drink. Dumb move. It never felt as if it kicked in. Perhaps if I hadn't zoned so much I would have remembered to take my walk breaks. That's right, I forgot to take my walk breaks. So after mastering the hills early on, I was zoning and getting slower by the mile. I thought about quitting at miles 6 and 7, but knowing that I was going to be writing this kept me going. Plus I had text Carlee, of Chasing Forrest Gump blog, and congratulated her for completing her first marathon yesterday. She happens to live in the same town as me. I also told her she was my motivator for running today, and I certainly had to suck it up and complete 8 miles, since it's only 30% of the distance she ran yesterday. Fortunately I completed the 8 miles, and averaged a 10:06 per mile pace. It's faster than I had to run, but it was definitely a struggle since I pretty much did everything wrong. Tomorrow I'm scheduled to run for 40-50 minutes at a 9:40 per mile pace. Normally that's not a problem, but after neglecting to take it as easy as I should have and use walk breaks, we'll see.