Last Truly Long Run before Boston is in the Books

Each marathon training cycle I do a beyond the race distance training run. Don't ask me why, it is just something that I do. Usually, the distance is 27 or 28 miles depending on what my body lets me do.

Normally, this run occurs on the last weekend before I start my taper so roughly 3 weeks out from my marathon. However, in this training cycle the CRC 5k relay fell on this weekend and threw a monkey wrench into my training plans. With me going off late on Saturday night, it pretty much put a weekend long run out of the question.

So I opted to change it to Thursday. After all, I should be able to run it and recover before Saturday night. Right.

Well, first Megan got wind of it and wanted in. Later Mike worked some magic to clear his schedule so he was in.

Thus at 5:20 this morning Megan, Mike, and I headed out to run the first Thursday Charlotte Marathon + 2 miles. As with any big time marathon we had some pacers to make sure that we got out at just the right pace – thanks Ben and Alex for the lead out, but soon they dropped away leaving the 3 of us to do absorb the next 25 miles alone.

Megan had laid out a pretty nice course for us. First we headed north on Sardis, then south on Monroe Rd past Matthews. There we circled through a neighborhood greenway path before coming back out in Matthews. Then it was back to 51 which we followed down to Rea Rd before turning north all the way to Carmel. I think it was Carmel. I was getting a little delirious at this point. We circled by PDS for a water stop before heading down Sardis Rd to Mc Alpine. Just as we were entering the park, we crossed the 18 mile point.

For the last 10 miles we pretty much covered all of Mc Alpine before leaving the park and heading back to Megan and Ben's house. This is where Megan forced Mike and me to climb this insanely steep hill. Honestly, it was just what we needed. It gave us a tough finish to callus the mind and body for Boston's Heartbreak hill.

We totaled 28 miles of running in 3 hours 29 minutes.

There was a few times where I felt like I was struggling to hang on. Worst was when we were coming around for the 27 mile. Megan and Mike put a little gap on me as we headed back from crossing Margret Wallace Rd. I thought "no big deal", I would close up the distance.

It didn't exactly happen that way. Yes, I did pick up the pace but I was not closing the distance. In fact, I was losing distance to them. It was mile 27 so if the wheels seemed to be coming off, this was the time for it. But no, I covered the 27 mile in 7:03, they just ran a 6:40. At least I felt better when I learned their split.

Otherwise, I felt fine most of the run. I took 3 gels - one every 6 miles. We had two water stops.

Having done several of these runs during the last few years they seem to drag on forever. Today, the 3 and ½ hours seemed to fly by. I wish all of my runs went this way.

Special thanks to Megan and Mike helping get me through it.

 

 

Thoughts from the Cool Down Runner