A tough 15 mile run
This weekend the schedule called for a 15 mile run, the longest of the year so far. It didn’t go so well to say the least, so I’ll get the numbers of out the way up front – 2:34:41, a 10:19/mile pace – ie.”not good”.
I knew the run was coming all week, but still couldn’t resist happy hour Friday after work at The Dock At The Bay. I knew I wasn’t running Saturday, but still probably had one or four Sam Adams too many (it was a very relaxing time with a good local band – Buffalo Rising!). Saturday I helped two friends from my soccer teams move into their new apartment. The move took longer than I’d anticipated (not that I minded guys), and tired me out pretty good. I planned on doing the 15 mile run Sunday, but since I was tired and didn’t pack my stuff for the activities planned for Sunday afternoon, pushed it off to Monday (Labor Day). Fortunately Sunday was a very relaxing day that consisted primarily just of shooting guns and some other tomfoolery. (I’m pretty sure I need a rifle now…) I probably didn’t get to bed early enough Sunday night, but couldn’t force myself to sleep.
Today (Monday) didn’t start very well. I planned to head to this year’s new hunting grounds and do some scouting early in the morning. I’d only been there once before and am remotely familiar with the area (Perrysburg, NY). Since I couldn’t remember the route we took last time, I tried a slightly different one that looked shorter and went past a place just off the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation I occasionaly fish. Sunup was at 6:43 this morning, so I awoke at 5:45 and was on the road by 6. I didn’t realize the one road on the route turned off the road I was on and ended up touring the countryside until just past 7:30, when I should have been at the hunting grounds by 6:25 at the latest. Fed up, I decided to call it quits, found my way out of the area, made a quick stop at a friend’s parents along my planned route to unload gatorade and Clif’s Shot Bloks into their mailbox, and headed home for a quick nap.
I slept a little longer than I should have, spent time loading up my mother’s iPod with music, and didn’t even begin running until 10:49, when it was already in the high 70s. I was doing alright on the start of the run, but at mile 3, my stomach started to hurt (as if I was hungry), and so I walked for about two minutes, which fortunately settled it. I’d only had the Shot Bloks before I started, but I’ve been going out so early in the morning that I don’t need much for food. The next 2 miles were done up and down (or down and up?) the entrance to Evangola State Park, which is completely unshaded and very hot, but far from the Sahara.
I was doing just fine until mile 7, when I had a running first happen to me and a huge discouragement: as I was running down the side of the paved road, minding my own business, I felt a sharp pain right in the square of my back. Apparently I’d offended a yellow jacket enough to bite me. I flapped my shirt and felt back there, but he must have just been on a hit and run mission and didn’t get stuck in my shirt. I haven’t been stung in a couple years, but this was the third sting of the year for me. (The other two conveniently placed right in the middle of a freshly scraped up elbow.) I was pretty angered by it, flailed my arms in a way that probably looked pretty stupid, and yelled out loudly, but no one was there to notice. I’d say it’d put me in the mood to go kill some yellow jackets, but I put three rounds of bird shot through some Sunday, so maybe they were paying me back.
I had a planned stop at my mailbox at mile 8 & took in some Gatorade and Shot Bloks. I was still doing a decent pace at this point, but could have used some more Gatorade – the bottle in the mailbox was a small one and only half full since I had some before I left for the run. Another two miles down the route I stopped at Connor’s Hot Dog Stand to grab some water to make up for the Gatorade I was missing. I ended up running into a former house mate of mine and stopped to talk for 5 minutes or so. The next part of the run took me up a hill, part of the run I’d knew would be bad. It wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I suspected & I was able to run up the entire thing. On my way to the other bottle of Gatorade & Shot Bloks I’d stashed at a friend’s parent’s house, I ran into his sister, whom I went to high school with and has run a couple marathons. I talked to her for 5-10 minutes and continued to her parent’s house, where I also talked to her father for 5 minutes.
From the last Gatorade & Shot Bloks on, I was really struggling – there were a couple more hills & I walked quite a bit of it.
When I finished the 15, I was pretty disappointed with myself. I had around a mile and a half to walk back home, which I used to evaluate the run. I think the things that really hurt me were:
- the yellow jacket sting
- the heat
- lack of sleep
- too much chatting along the run
On top of those, I know I was semi-sub-consciously dreading the distance. I know I shouldn’t though – 15 miles is a mere 2 miles longer than 13, which I feel great at the end of. I was sore at the end of this 15 miles and felt it when I lifted my legs, but the day after I feel great. This is a positive and again different from last year. While I needed the breaks during this run, I estimate I took upwards of 20 minutes worth. Doing the math, if I were to eliminate those breaks, it’d bring me down to ~9 minute average mile or less, which I would have been very happy with.
This coming weekend calls for a 16 mile run. I’m going to try and run it in the city of Buffalo instead of out in Angola. It’s a little tougher to stash drinks along the route in the city, but I’ll see what I can do. I want to write this past week’s run off as just a fluke bad run, but it scares me quite a bit when I didn’t do so well at this distance and still have another 11 miles to run for a full marathon. This week and weekend will be a difficult mental hurdle to get over to say the least.