I fit this long run in after school drop offs. I drop my first grader off by walking him to school at 7:15 a.m., and I take my kindergartner to school in car line at 8:40 a.m. I went straight from carline at 9:00 to a parking lot nearby, ran the 20 miles, hopped into the car, drove home, took a shower, and turned around and headed back to the preschool to pick her up. BUSY morning!
It was a hot day with highs in the 90s, and I was running in the sun (from around 9:00 a.m.-12:00). I was aiming for an under 8:45 pace on this run. That is 90 seconds off my marathon pace. I had an 8:30 pace until mile 16. I ran up the Clift's Cove hill, and I just felt weak and tired, more than I would normally feel after a little over 12 miles of running. I pushed through it and made it to Dublin Park. I stopped under a bush for shade and stopped the Garmin. I had 3 1/2 miles to go at this point, and I knew I didn't want to quit. I also knew that if I didn't hurry I wouldn't have enough time to go home and shower before getting my daughter. That was motivation! I went into Dublin to get water and to refill my water bottle.
I noticed the strangest thing around this point---my left ear was all clogged up (like how you feel after your go swimming and water gets into it). I thought it might be running related and later learned that it was (see here). But it stayed that way for the rest of the run and a couple of hours later. I ended the run with 9:39 miles and feeling very defeated. Overall, the pace was 8:45 for the 20 miles, so I met my goal, but I don't like the slow down at the end or the feeling of fatigue.
I now look at this as room for improvement. It is much better to finish your first 20 miler in a series of 3 feeling like this than if I'd finished my last one this way. This one just made me stronger for the next two. I hope to see some cooler weather in the next few weeks too. This will make a big difference in my performance during any daytime runs.
I am so impressed by this run! Wow! I don't think I could run 20 miles during the day in August. No matter how trained or how strong I just don't think this is something I could do... and mabye because I don't really want to, but still. I am so impressed and I think this is a GREAT run!
ReplyDeleteAND, you may already know this, but training in the summer for a fall race is HUGE in getting a PR or running a strong race. Your body is working overtime, making all of your systems more efficient (blood taking oxygen to muscles, bigger vessels, stronger lungs, etc.) to do the work in the heat...so when you actually race in a cooler setting you have all of those systems that don't have to work as hard, but have some serious power behind them. So while this run may have been hard and even a tad discouraging (although I don't think it should be), you probably got way more quality training than you realize.