Well, in with August, has finally brought us some cloudy, cool and rainy weather. For all those hot humid 90° days when we wishing for just a sprinkle during the workouts, it came in droves Sunday just in time for the 22 mile run!
My training partner and I headed west to run the flat cinder/dirt bike path along the Mohawk river (sort of). As were driving out the rain was picking up and temps were about 65°. We placed our water at about 5 miles and 8.5 miles then headed back to the start.
I have to admit; if I had been out there by myself, with the rain, I probably would have packed it in or done about half the run, but we really had no choice but to press on. It was going to be raining the entire day.
About 1 minute into the run, someone turned a faucet on! Shoes drenched and clothes could be wrung out, only 21.5 miles to go...
Every water stop, I was attacked by mosquitoes and at least 3 bit me each time. Ick! I ended up with 10 bites on my arms, hands, and shoulders.
Also a cinder surface is very ideal and easy on the legs, the next day you don't feel as though you ran so far or hard! (TIP # 3)
(TIP # 4) May not want to venture to run on this surface when rain is coming down in buckets, the cinders end up collecting in your shoes or better yet, your sock, right around your heel, and may result in an abrasion, or a bloody heel...which is what I encountered!
Our pace for the first 7 mi was 7:31/mi
The next 12.7 mi was 7:24/mi
and brought home last 2 miles in 7:02/mi - I just wanted this run to be over! Dry clothes and a warm cup of coffee...OVERALL Pace 7:24/mi 22 miles in 2:43:12
Last time I ran this route (only 20.05) was Aug 8th - by my lonesome in 7:23/mi
Last nights run "Karen's"
What looked to be another great night with some clouds and cool temps, turned into a humid 75° and a couple passing drizzle showers!
Wednesday night's is our "Karen's Run" it is the eastern portion of the cinder bike path mentioned above. We refer to it as that because we start at an ice cream/produce stand called Karen's...so when we are done with the run we have ICE CREAM (Milkshakes!)
Last night was our 10th week out there for our run that has ranged from 12-15 miles. A few of my training partners and teammates come out for this run. We did 14 miles; 7 out and 7 back. Shawn left us water at the 5 mi mark in this little village we go through. With this group we always go fast, even when one of us says "yeah I'm pretty tired tonight, maybe we could take it easy" or "I have a race this weekend, I am not going to run hard"...but as we get talking, shooting jokes out and discussing some very controversial topics at times, we end up picking up the pace and running pretty hard.
Paces: about every 2 miles we went from 7:40/mi, 7:10/mi, 6:48/mi, 7:09/mi, 6:58/mi, 6:31/mi, and as cool down finished in 7:32/mi. Really a bit of a spontaneous ladder workout or something.
Milkshakes to finish us off! Yum.
Over the 10 weeks - we have now progressed to finishing at about 8:00 ish, and the last 2 weeks it has been pretty much dark...Boo! Pretty soon we won't be heading out there for weekday runs until next summer...14 miles in 1:40:01
No comments:
Post a Comment