28 mile run with a 12 tempo run in the middle
Yesterday morning, I was off for my last really long run and final marathon paced run before the Twin Cities Marathon. In the past, this is usually a solo run for me, but yesterday fortunately, I had a huge group come out to give me some support for this really long run: Caitlin, Jay, Paul, Derrick, Nathan, Mike, Adam, and Steve.
As per our typical marathon paced runs, we started with a 10 mile warm up in 75 minutes. Actually, it was closer to 11 than to 10.
My legs were feeling rather tired during the 10 mile warm up. I was regularly drifting off the back and had to make a conscious effort to stay up.
I would have probably dropped back but I was also trying to show everyone the turns on the course so that our 12 mile tempo would go much smoother. To help keep everyone on track, I had painted pink arrows ("for Caitlin") at all of the turns on Friday night.
Back at the park, everyone grabbed some water and fuel if they wanted it. Nathan and Derrick took a rain check on the tempo so Adam, Mike, Caitlin, Steve, and I ran the 12 mile tempo. Jay and Paul took the short loop for the 10 mile tempo.
Paul and Jay were soon out of sight on their run.
Our group settled in with a couple of 6:35s miles to start, and then Mike drops a 5:57 on the 3rd uphill mile. He pretty much brunt every match in my book to stay with him. He tested out Steve, Adam, and Caitlin as well. There was plenty of hard breathing by everyone.
We turned and headed through downtown area of Huntersville where Steve jumped out about 10 yards in front of us. He was definitely in good shape and it was showing.
We hit this short, tiny hill where I sensed a change in the pace. Mentally, I wanted to go with it but the legs and body were not responding. A 5 yard gap soon balloon to 100 yards. A quick check of my Garmin indicated that I was running about 6:11 miles but that 3rd mile effort had taken its toll on me.
Slowly, Mike, Caitlin, and Steve pulled away. By 7 miles, my body and a well done steak had a lot in common. Everyone had pulled away to the point that they were out of sight.
Caitlin is another one that was looking smooth yesterday. Three weeks from now, she will most likely surprise even herself.
My overall average was in 6:40s for the entire 12 miles but there were some 7 minute miles over those last 5 miles.
I was the last to make it back to the finish. Everyone had finished their efforts, but Mike did join me for the last couple of more miles. Then I was solo for the last 4 miles.
The best part was when I came back to my car where a nice bottle of Gatorade and banana were waiting for me. Special thanks to Nathan for supplying the post run refreshments, and to Mike for leaving my personal snack on my car. I drank the Gatorade in one shot.
From a long run perspective, this was one of my best and easiest long runs because 24 miles of it were a huge group run. But for the marathon paced run, I was a little disappointed, the legs just didn't respond the way that I expected. There was very little bounce in my legs. In hind sight, Mike's hard 3rd mile was more than my body was ready to handle. Letting him go would have been the best thing for me, but being stubborn is part of any runner's make-up. In this case, I doomed myself. It just goes to show that even experienced runners can be sucked out beyond their abilities.
Thoughts from Cool Down Runner
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