It's amazing how life interferes with blogging. Had a great weekend in Chico for the Bidwell Classic (race report is coming, sometime this week, lame lame), got home and had somewhat unexpected house guests for a couple of days, and today I'm off to Marin for work. In the middle of all that, I managed to get my photos together from the race, but that's about it. More to come!
Meanwhile, yesterday I busted out my longest run yet . . . I ran the last half (plus some) of the Reno Marathon route that I'll be running in May, for a total of 16 miles. Running along a bike path, through Reno and Sparks along the Truckee River, it was pretty flat and scenic. I saw everything from casinos to lots of homeless people, a big ol' mental hospital, lovely river scenes, the end of the bike path which devolved into dirt, and then ultimately turned around at mile 7.75 by a train trestle (which I considered crossing -- it was really short -- but during said consideration I actually fell over for almost no apparent reason, and thus decided to run a little loop to make up the half mile, as opposed to tackling the live train trestle over the rushing river waters in all my klutzy glory).
I was "supposed" to run this at about a 12:00/min/mile pace, which I did for the first two miles. As I settled in, 12:30 felt a lot more comfortable, so I hung out around there for the rest of the run. I felt really good and strong until about mile 11.5, where my legs started saying Whaaa??? I still held on around 12:30 until the beginning of mile 13 or so, and then everything just kinda dropped down to 13+ miles. As it all turned out, I ran 15.8 miles in about 3:20, which left me with an average pace of 12:38. I was definitely in the groove for most of the run and feel really happy about my time, but have some lingering questions, like Holy Shit how am I gonna run 26? and the .2?!? I'm sure as I build up more endurance this'll get easier, but 16 was pretty darn hard, or at least the last 4 of it was.
I drove home, had a shower, popped my legs into some Recovery Socks and went out and had a nice dinner. I dunno if it's the socks or what, but today I am virtually pain-free, with no real evidence (outside of a little chafing) that yesterday I ran such a long distance. Either I'm getting more used to these longer distances, or tomorrow I'm gonna be one sore puppy.
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3 comments:
NICE! That sounds like a nice route. Perhaps I'll have to put that marathon on my "list".
Don't linger on those lingering questions. Just assume you can do it because you sure as hell can. I'm going to have to look into these recovery socks....
May is long way off. You'll get there.
Focus on the here and now. One foot in front of the other and all those other platitudes!
;)
life is short...I may have to go for the bag!
The duct tape thing is a surprise...you put it right on your skin?
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