Sunday Long Run - "Go. Now"
I had planned to head to Memorial Park with Steve Schroeder this morning. We were going to meet at 5:30 AM, get to the park by 6, do a loop before the Bayou City runners showed up, then pound some miles with them until we got to 20 or 21. I got up at about 4 AM to go to the bathroom and heard the rain coming down steady. At 5 AM Steve sent a text message saying essentially, "screw this crap". So I went back to bed. During 9:30 AM church I kept trying to figure out when I'd be able to get in a long-run today. I've had a light week thus far and am close to taper mode for Dallas (3 weeks from today) so I've got to get these long-runs in, one way or another. My wife was planning to take our 4 year old to a birthday party today from noon to 4 PM and we had another party tonight at 5 PM for Steve's little girl so I wasn't sure when I'd be able to pull it off.
We got home from church at about 11 AM and started working on lunch. My wife took another glance at the party invitation for today and noticed that it was at 2 PM, not noon. I hadn't made my own lunch yet but was about to get it going (I was very hungry), when my wife said, "You still want to do your long-run? Go. Now!" I don't argue when it's put to me that way so I headed for the bedroom to dress for a run. I also grabbed the phone and called Steve. He was up to his elbows in honey-dos but said he'd be ready in 15 minutes and head over. I went back to the kitchen, made room for a few ice cubes in my 32 oz bottle of Power-Ade so I could plant it on the New Territory loop and headed for the door. My wife gave me one condition - be home by 2 PM at the latest. So, looking down at my watch which read 11:40 I wondered how far I could get in 2 hours 20 minutes.
I made it up to the 3.2 mile loop (actually 3.19 to be precise) and decided to make tracks before Steve showed up. I wasn't sure if I'd see him on the first loop or the 2nd so I wanted to run a strong pace and get some time in the bank before we settled into a conversational pace. My goal was to complete six loops (19.2 roughly) and make it home by 2 PM.
I hit the first loop in 22 minutes flat, a 6:52 pace. I didn't see Steve until almost two miles into the second loop so I had my bank by the time he joined me. The 2nd loop was 22:30. The 3rd loop was an easier 23:28 (7:20 pace). After the 4th loop I needed to hit my bottle, having just ingested a goo and starting to need a pick-me-up. That 4th loop was a decent 22:54 (7:09 pace) but we burned about 45 seconds of the 5th loop sucking down liquid refreshments so loop #5 was 23:58 (7:29 pace). My legs were really getting fatigued from the pounding of the concrete and the effects of this very rolling, non-PR course. I clocked a 23:33 final loop (7:22 pace) and headed home, leaving Steve to finish on his own. Hated to do it but you don't look a gift-horse in the mouth. I made it to my house right at 2 PM.
Including the distance I had to cover from my house to the loop and back, added to 6 loops, I figured I covered about 19.4 miles today on a course that would be good training for Boston, and under warmer and muggier than ideal conditions.
Total distance: 19.4 miles, 2:19:13 (7:11 pace).
We got home from church at about 11 AM and started working on lunch. My wife took another glance at the party invitation for today and noticed that it was at 2 PM, not noon. I hadn't made my own lunch yet but was about to get it going (I was very hungry), when my wife said, "You still want to do your long-run? Go. Now!" I don't argue when it's put to me that way so I headed for the bedroom to dress for a run. I also grabbed the phone and called Steve. He was up to his elbows in honey-dos but said he'd be ready in 15 minutes and head over. I went back to the kitchen, made room for a few ice cubes in my 32 oz bottle of Power-Ade so I could plant it on the New Territory loop and headed for the door. My wife gave me one condition - be home by 2 PM at the latest. So, looking down at my watch which read 11:40 I wondered how far I could get in 2 hours 20 minutes.
I made it up to the 3.2 mile loop (actually 3.19 to be precise) and decided to make tracks before Steve showed up. I wasn't sure if I'd see him on the first loop or the 2nd so I wanted to run a strong pace and get some time in the bank before we settled into a conversational pace. My goal was to complete six loops (19.2 roughly) and make it home by 2 PM.
I hit the first loop in 22 minutes flat, a 6:52 pace. I didn't see Steve until almost two miles into the second loop so I had my bank by the time he joined me. The 2nd loop was 22:30. The 3rd loop was an easier 23:28 (7:20 pace). After the 4th loop I needed to hit my bottle, having just ingested a goo and starting to need a pick-me-up. That 4th loop was a decent 22:54 (7:09 pace) but we burned about 45 seconds of the 5th loop sucking down liquid refreshments so loop #5 was 23:58 (7:29 pace). My legs were really getting fatigued from the pounding of the concrete and the effects of this very rolling, non-PR course. I clocked a 23:33 final loop (7:22 pace) and headed home, leaving Steve to finish on his own. Hated to do it but you don't look a gift-horse in the mouth. I made it to my house right at 2 PM.
Including the distance I had to cover from my house to the loop and back, added to 6 loops, I figured I covered about 19.4 miles today on a course that would be good training for Boston, and under warmer and muggier than ideal conditions.
Total distance: 19.4 miles, 2:19:13 (7:11 pace).
posted by Lance Collins at 6:48 PM
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