Another Sunday, another long run...

Sunday, September 7 2008, 2+ hours

After a week "off" so to speak, it was back on for this week. I ended up skipping the Tuesday run, after racing The Human Race on Sunday, because I was so tired as it turned out. But I managed to get 8 1/2 or so in on Thursday and another 5+ on Friday, so I was doing ok. I scheduled myself for another 2+ hour run, hoping to get in the 14-15 mile range. I was also planning to try some race pace running on this run, as in 2-3 miles warmup and then most of the rest of it at around my 8:00/mile race pace.

Jim was doing a supported ride on the Longhorn course and Scott's still out with back issues, but Dave said that he'd meet me at 7:30 and run. So my plan was to get going at around 6:30 and then only have about an hour left when I met up with Dave. Of course my plans never quite work out.

I got moving a little later than I had hoped. I had managed to hold my Saturday night drinking down in the "quite a bit" range, which is better then the "a lot" or "way too much" ranges that I frequently end up in. Still it was difficult to get up when the alarm went off at 5:50. I will say that during the night, I had woken up to hear a barred owl off in the distance, just down the greenbelt from where we live. The weather has been pretty nice lately, so I opened my window before going back to bed so I could listen to him. I don't know why, but hearing owls at night always gives me comfort. I think of it as a good omen. And here in town it's pretty rare to hear them, generally it's only screech owls, and even those you don't hear every day. So hearing him, combined with the fact that during my Thurday morning run I had run right beneath a great horned owl down in Old Enfield, and I was feeling pretty good. Still, the 5:50 wakeup was tough.

Especially when you consider that I didn't get out of bed until about 6:15. So by the time I ate and got packed, out the door and down to Zilker, it was 6:45 before I was on the trail. Still, that gave me 45 minutes to rack up some miles before I had to meet Dave. I did the S. 1st Street to Mopac loop, for about 5 miles total. (Ok, it's 4.77 according to mapmyrun.com.)

I had planned to stick with taking one GU every 30 minutes today, regardless of how I felt. I'm realizing that I really do get a kick of energy out of those things, it just lags them by 20 minutes or so. During the marathon, I'm convinced that I'll do a lot better if I make sure to take one every half hour, hoping that it will provide me with the energy I need to hold on for the last hour or so. So today was a test.

It was just getting light as I headed out on the trail. Right now, 6:45 is just about the exact time when there's finally more light from the sky than from the street lights. It will be getting later as we move into the fall of course, but for today getting on the trail right then was perfect. There were actually quite a lot of other people out there as well. I'm not the only crazy one, apparently.

The run was good, I checked my pace a time or two. I don't have a fancy Garmin or anything, I just kind of know my pace. And on the trail, there are markers every quarter mile, so it's easy to gauge how fast your going, so long as you know where the markers are and remember to look at your watch (and remember what you read on your watch). I wasn't down around 8:00 yet, more like 8:45 to 9:00, but that's ok for early in the run. Dave will make me speed up when he shows up, that I know.

I met up with him back at Barton at about 7:30. We head out, this time in the other direction. I suggest doing the I-35 loop with him (about 7 miles) and that's fine for him. So we move along, enjoying the scenery (trees, lake, girls) and talking the usual talk about kids, school, jobs, etc. Not long after the first water stop, I'm working to keep up with him. While my ambient pace seems to settle in around 8:15-8:30, I think that Dave's is naturally more like 7:40. So he's always pulling me along (or I'm always pulling him back, depending upon how you look at it). Anyway, I take a couple of time checks along the way and we're crusing along at something like 7:40/mile. A little too fast, but still it's better to be pushing myself today I decide.

I'm good about sticking with my GU/half hour plan, and I think that it helps. Still at times he runs away from me and has to wait for me to catch up. Finally, just after we cross the lake at I35, he tells me that he's going to run a little pace back to the S. 1st street water stop. So I let him go (it's better for us both, believe me ;-) and try to stay at my eight minute pace as best I can. (There are no markers on this part of the trail.)

We meet up at the water stop, but I've decided to cross the bridge and go back the long way, which will give me three more miles instead of just one. That's easier (psychologically anyway) than running the one mile and then picking up the other two on an out-and-back. I feel good, and manage to keep the pace pretty well the rest of the way. Every time check comes in right at 8:00, so I'm happy with my overall performance.

In the end it was 2:10, 14 miles and 4 GUs. I think that I kept my pace pretty well. And in retrospect here from a couple of days, I think that I definitely feel that. I'm more worn out than I've been from most of my long runs. It gave me some confidence for race day, but I definitely don't want to do that again.

Also, my left achilles tendon is quite sore. This is the closest thing that I've felt to an injury during all of my training. I've been wondering, as tired and worn down as I've felt over the last month or so, how long my body could keep doing this and not start to pay a price. I may have an answer now. I'll keep off of it and only run a little bit at first to see how it responds. At this point I think that I have my training and endurance there for the race. It's most important to stay healthy up until race day.