I knew it the moment I stepped out the door to go warm up the Tahoe, the mushy, muddy wet ground. I kept hoping this wasn't a tell-tell omen of what the trails would be like, sadly they were. Rocky and I got to the trails at 6 AM and we attempted to run in muddy, sloshy, god-awful hell........ just before .2 miles I said screw this. We headed back, got .36 miles on the trails in 4:46 and then I drove home. I dropped Rocky off, changed shoes, took my windbreaker off and headed out the door for my 14-15 miler.
I tried a route I've only used once for my long runs, it was slow going at first, yesterday's 5 sets of 300 bicycle crunches had made my quads, hams and right butt cheek really sore. It wasn't really sprinkling, but there was moisture or something in the air and very windy in the beginning. I kept at it, realizing I had gatorade in both bottles because I was originally headed to the trails and had 2 water bottles in Rocky's doggie pack. I thought "shoot........." but focused on sipping gatorade when I needed to, the plan was to wait until mile 11 to consume some GU.
Right at mile 5, I was in my own little world when I heard the "paw" steps coming up quickly behind me, my heart raced and my adrenaline shot up as I turned around to see a large dog coming up. Noticing I was startled, he slowed down and I immediately saw that he meant no harm. He also had no intentions of letting me run alone, or maybe he wanted me to chase him? Not sure, but after standing there for a minute trying to coax him to go back to his home.... I started back up and he raced ahead of me, but I really needed to make a pit stop and in private so when the dog ran around the corner and could no longer see me I dashed into the woods. A few seconds later he ran the other way, I guess he was looking for me but I never saw him again.
The next few miles were pretty plain, I tried not to look at the garmin and see where I was mileage wise. As runs get longer and longer, it is not the greatest thing when you look at your garmin and see that you still have 10-12 miles to go. By mile 10 I was still feeling good, sipping gatorade when I felt I needed it and just kept on going. At mile 11 I consumed a Chocolate Rage Gu and sipped some lemon lime gatorade.
I had to do some weird things, going a little ways down one road then coming back and then doing again on another side road to get to mile 13 at the spot I know is 2 miles from home. I had decided on 15 miles today, and I really didn't want to overlap any of my route.
This run was considerably faster than last Sunday's 15 miler, as I didn't have to deal with either frozen or muddy trails. The temperature was 32 degrees with a feels like 25, and it says winds of 7 mph N but I swear they were more like 10-13 mph at some points. Total elevation gain of 302 feet and a loss of 308 feet.
I ran the 15 miles in 2:27:13 with an average pace of 9:49 min/mile, surprising for me, I still cannot estimate what my marathon pace per mile will be but it seems I am not really slowing down as the distance grows. But I am still 11.2 miles from a marathon distance so anything can happen.
Laps/splits were:
Mile 1 - 10:19
Mile 2 - 10:19
Mile 3 - 10:15
Mile 4 - 10:11
Mile 5 - 10:09
Mile 6 - 10:03
Mile 7 - 9:51
Mile 8 - 9:34
Mile 9 - 9:48
Mile 10 - 9:24
Mile 11 - 9:24
Mile 12 - 9:32
Mile 13 - 9:49
Mile 14 - 9:42
Mile 15 - 8:50
Things started out slowish, but I didn't mind because my goal or expectation is to stick around 10 min/mile pace during the marathon but things did seem to pick up around mile 7. Overall, another good run on the books.
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