Sunday, July 13, 2014

This Morning's Humid 14 Miler

   Well, lets start with yesterday morning's run which was 2.4 miles so I took both Dorian and Rocky with me for a 25 minute run, we ran 2.4 in 24:40. Rocky does real well even trotting with the stroller, sadly they frown on dogs being in our training group so he can come and it's just hot and humid most of the summer. Other than that, it was pretty uneventful.

  Now for this morning, I told ya'll the forecast was saying temps in the high 70's and high humidity for this morning. They weren't kidding, it was 75 degrees, 89% humidity and a dew point of 70 or 71.... I walked out the door at 3:40 AM and it almost felt like I was being smothered, suffocated by an invisible blanket or something. It was awful, but I knew I had to get out there and get my 14 miles in.. no excuses. I focused on just one mile at a time and for a while it went well.
  Before mile 1, I scared a coyote who was apparently so intrigued by some smell he didn't notice me until I made noises which then he took off. Around mile 4 I had to go to the bathroom, and I think I used some questionable leaves.... from now on I am taking baby wipes with me. That wasn't the end of it either, things started going down hill by mile 5 and then I was stopping every mile or so, my quads were really sore and my calves were really tight and I was feeling sick to my stomach.
  Around mile 8 things really began to go downhill, so much so that I was struggling with the urge to just go home and call it a 10, but I pushed on. The weather wasn't helping and my stomach was just fighting me all the way, it just wasn't a fun run at all :(
  I kept pushing, and fighting and telling myself to focus on each mile. I was covered in sweat and just feeling nasty, my clothes felt as if I had gone swimming in them but warm rather than cold which would have been awesome.
  I can't express how happy I was to get to mile 12 and then 13, only one mile to go! This was probably one of my toughest runs this year, and so far the toughest run of this training season. I really, truly hope there aren't a lot of these days but then again I know they'll only make me stronger when Fall gets here and the race gets here.
  I finished 14 miles in 2:24:30 with an average pace of 10:19 min/mile, but the elapsed time was 3:11:36.......... 47 minutes worth of stopping, being sick and trying to go to the bathroom.... good god, seeing that is really frustrating. Elevation gain was 307 feet and a loss of 304 feet.
Laps/splits were:
Mile 1 - 11:17
Mile 2 - 10:33
Mile 3 - 10:25
Mile 4 - 10:23
Mile 5 - 10:29
Mile 6 - 10:45
Mile 7 - 10:48
Mile 8 - 10:44
Mile 9 - 10:37
Mile 10 - 10:09
Mile 11 - 9:51
Mile 12 - 9:46
Mile 13 - 9:37
Mile 14 - 9:08

   Yes... I know the splits were still a good negative but by mile 11 I just wanted to finish and get home. I have decided that I am going to cut back to 5 days a week rather than 6, see how that goes and maybe, just maybe I'll do a recovery run on Mondays after my long run but it just doesn't seem to be a good idea (for me) to run the day before my long run.

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